SF 487 
.S17 
Copy 1 



Pleasure and Profit 
from Poultry 




PLEASURE AND PROFIT 
FROM POULTRY 



bij DR. N^W.^ SANBORN 

II 

Revised hy 
L. N. GILMORE 

PROFESSOR OF POULTRY HUSBANDRY 

SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY 

SYRACUSE, N. Y. 




AMERICAN POULTRY ADVOCATE CO. 
Publishers 

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK 



<: 






Copyright, 1922, by 

American Poultry Advocate Co. 

Syracuse, N. Y. 



©CI AG 805 11 

m -3 1922 



•\*x? 




PLEASURE AND PROFIT 
FROM POULTRY 



Chapter I 
STARTING WITH DAY-OLD CHICKS 

;HE poultryman can be a producer or buyer of day-oid chicks. It is 
common practice for thousands of successful poultrymen to buy chicks 
to replenish their flocks. For these there is no heavy expense in invest- 
ment in incubators, incubator cellars, labor and other necessary items 
that go with the job of incubation. Incubators cost money at the present 
rime, and considering the short time they are in use they make the cost of 
chicks com.e somewhat high and initiate an overhead expense of no small 
means. 

Market eggs are bringing a good price and day-old chicks can be bought 
at a fairly reasonable rate. Besides the expense attached in purchasing 
incubators, buying oil, labor involved in incubating, v/hich comes at a time 
when there are a million and one other things to do on the farm, you can 
conservatively figure that it is going to take two or more eggs cut of your 
production to produce one chick. At this writing eggs are selling in Syracuse, 
New York, for 50 cents per dozen. Good chicks can be had this year for 
12-17 cents apiece. Now figure a little bit before investing too heavily in 
incubators. Far be it from me to discourage anyone in purchasing incu- 
bators, for I feel incubators have a place in every poultryman's equipm.ent. 
The foregoing statements were made for the benefit of the beginner, and the 
writer's main hope is in getting that beginner started in the most economical 
way. 

If you feel there is a future opportunity to sell day-old chicles to neighbors 
and the community in general, it would probably pay you to purchase a 
small unit of a mammoth machine and add to your units £s the business 
demanded. Starting in such a manner you have not piled up an expense 
in small lamp-heated incubators which you would have no use for after 
putting your mammoth into use. Chicks can be produced much more economic- 
ally in iTirjnmoth machines than in a series of small incubators. 

T have visited many poultry farms and found nothing but mammot!: 
incubators, not a sign of a small machine around, but invariably these poultry- 
men iiave sold off a string of small machines at considerable loss. They had. 
not seen the vision of bigger possibilities in their business when they started. 

Nov^r don't be too optimistic over what I have stated; don't be too cock- 
sure. First know that you can produce birds of the quality that are fit to 
produce eggs for your incubator, which v/hen hatched will turn out to bs 
big, strong, vigorous chicks that will sell. 

If you will follow methods outlined in this book, couple them up with 
some good conimon sense and some good hard work, which means constant 
attendance to business rather than muscular activity, you can soon be a 
producer of day-old chicks. 

Now a good many of my readers v/ill be interested in producing poultry 
just for the winter eggs and meat they will produce, and will have no general 
interest in building up a riroduct of standard bred and high egg producing 
strains of his own. In other words, they will want to be just poultry-farmers 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

and not breeders or fanciers. From that standpoint they can have a world of 
enjoyment and make good profits, but the breeder, the person who puts his 
skill into producing standard bred, and by standard bred I mean birds that 
have the qualities bred in them as laid down by the "American Standard of 
Perfection," a book published by the American Poultry Association and which 
is the Bible for all poultry judges, and in addition to these qualities has 
egg-laying ability bred into them, is going to have more fun and make far 
larger profits. 

I have one friend in the Middle West, a real fancier, who has worked up 
quite a business in selling day-old chicks for one dollar each. These chicks 
are well bred, out of show stock, and are sold with the expectation that they 
will develop into quality breeders and show birds. The price is not high when 
you consider what a setting of high grade eggs are worth, and give the buyer 
the same chance of owning a winner as does the breeder. This man would 
go out of poultry keeping rather than sell his best stock, but is willing to 
share chances in chicks with those who will pay him his price. Some breeders 
will not do this, even, but draw the line at the selling of eggs for hatching. 
A few breeders of note sell neither baby chicks or eggs for hatching, but 
stop short and "shy" when you try to get them anything except pairs, trios 
and pens, of full grown stock. 

One of our best New England breeders had a visitor, one day several 
years ago, who proceeded to look over the mated pens. When they had 
gone through the plant the visitor turned to the breeder and asked: 
"What can I have a setting of eggs from pen three for? Quickly came 
back the answer, "Fifteen dollars for fifteen eggs!" That price looked 
big, and he had less than ten dollars in his pocketbook, so he asked the 
cost of half a setting. He finally went home with eight eggs and left 
eight dollars behind him. How many of my readers would have thought 
they would ever see eight dollars' value out of the product of eight eggs? 
This man did get his money back, and much more. Out of those eight eggs 
from the best show mating of the plant, was hatched and reared a cockerel 
that was especially fine. Its good qualities became known and the fancier 
who sold the eggs paid this man fifty dollars for that one chick. It was 
worth even more than he paid, but the other man could not resist parting 
with a fifty-dollar male out of a dollar egg. What was true of the "dollar 
an egg" deal has several times come true from the "dollar a chick" offer. 
There is always a "chance" in the selling and buying of eggs or chicks. It 
must be considered, not accepted, by both parties. I believe that prices will 
be higher in the future than in the past, and out of the selling of quality 
eggs and chicks will come profit to the seller and satisfaction to the buyer. 

I know of a farmer living in a modern Massachusetts town who, in 
addition to carrying on general farming, maintains a plant of 700 layers, 
and he has never hatched an egg. He buys early hatched chicks, broods 
them with coal burning hovers in his colony houses which later become 
his laying houses. I doubt, and he does also, if he could make the wonderful 
success he has enjoyed in the past if he attempted to hatch his own eggs, 
which naturally would involve the expense of maintaining breeding pens, incu- 
bators, etc., and labor coming at a time when other details of the farm are 
so much in demand. 



Chapter II 
MAKING MONEY WITH INCUBATORS 

SHIPPING chicks over long distances is no longer hazardous. I remember 
receiving a 1,000-mile shipment of 102 chicks about 12 years ago and 
finding 101 of those alive and in excellent condition, 98 of which I raised 
to maturity. Nov^^ w^ith more demand for them, with better methods of 
boxing and more attentiveness on the part of the transportation parties, 
millions of chicks have been shipped each season until the specialized business 
of chick hatcheries has become enormous and highly profitable to many. 
Isn't it fortunate for us that nature has endowed the chicks with sustenance 
tc carry through a period of 72 hours? Nature may sometimes work against 
us but certainly not in the case of the baby-chick business. 

Now with all I have said about the expense attendant to hatching and 
selling chicks, I believe that many a man on his small one-man poultry plant 
can well take up the selling of day-old chicks if he has the incubators or the 
vision of future possibilities with a mammoth machine. If he has no great 
outlay in small machines the expense of a mammoth unit would not ordinarily 
burden him. It would mean a home market for many of the eggs laid, the 
running of the machines through additional months, and the supplying of a 
demand that really exists. Many a man, or woman, can well add this side 
of poultry keeping to that already worked out, and gain a better income. 
The person who is successful in his own hatching is just the one to do it for 
others. The man who is hatching sturdy chicks is the one to be willing to 
produce more of them for other folks. There are large incubators, lamp 
heated, that do splendid hatching; there are the mammoth hatchers that are 
heated by a coal stove, to be had to make up a plant of any size. The woman 
with her one 400-egg incubator can well earn $50.00 every spring through 
starting it earlier and running it later than her own needs require. She can 
sell several hundred day-old chicks every spring. The man who wishes to get 
deep into the game is not at all hampered by the lack of call for chicks. 
Such plants are selling today five thousand, fifty thousand, one hundred 
thousand chicks every season. I have in mind the handling of the smaller 
number, perhaps ten thousand, each year, and let the business grow as you 
find you have the ability to carry it through. 

More Than One Breed 
The small poultry farm that is going into the producing of day-old chicks 
can well try out the carrying of two breeds. It may be that you will find 
the Wyandotte and Leirhorn to fit in well in this plan of mine. The season 
of hatching the Wyandotte chicks can begin in January, while that of the 
Leghorn can run into July. The idea is to hatch chicks that will lay eggs 
before the coming of severe winter weather. People buy day-old chicks, 
usually, to get pullets for producing eggs for table use. They are not thinking 
of the broiler and roaster side of it except as it relates to the getting rid of 
a product that is in the way. I know the most of the farms that are hatching 
the chicks for sale are known as the breeders of a single breed and variety, yet 
on the side they often have other pens of a different breed. They could well 
supply the sort of chick that would best fit your needs. 

Older Chicks 
I have been surprised at the growing demand for half or full grown 
pullets for layers. People who do not care to bother with hatching or breeding 
are desirous of getting pullets that are well feathered, well beyond the need 
of artificial heat, well beyond the dangers of young chickenhood. "Pound 
pullets" are not to be lightly spoken of, fill a demand that is constantly 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

increasing, and should be thought of in the planning of the spring's work. 
Then in the autumn of the year come the village and town folks asking for 
pullets for layers. In my day I have seen the price of a big pullet increase 
twice. Today a pullet of the American class, be it Rock, Wyandotte or Red, 
that is within a month of laying, sells for two dollars to three dollars, it is 
hard to find a matui'e pullet cf this sort in October for less than $2.25, and 
most of them sell for more money. Not far away is a small breeder of Rhode 
Island Reds who hatches freely through March and April, and he had to shut 
down on pullet sales at $3.00 each, because he would have had none left for 
his own pens. The demand at that price was more than he could fill. A pullet 
of five pounds should not cost to raise to six months of age over $1.00' for 
feed and expense other than care, leaving a good profit for the labor that is 
needed by the producer. It is one of the questions that must be decided before 
the middle of March — the question of doing more or less hatching this year. 
It is a good time to enlar:^:e the poultry side of the farm. Poultry has sold 
at paying prices for dressed birds, table eggs seem likely to sell at higher 
average prices through this coming year, and the call for fancy stock is mucn 
more than for several years. The poultry shows have been very largely 
attended, the circulation cf the poultry papers is getting more substantial, 
poultry institutes and lectures are becoming more frequent and better 
attended, so that I have great expectations of good times for poultry pro- 
ducers, especially those who are fortunate enough to live on the farm. 

Make Changes Slowiy 
Do not make the mistake of growing too rapidly in any new change in 
your poultry business. If you decide to do a little in the producing of day- 
old chicks, let the increase be not over double that of last year. Success each 
year in your moderately enlarged business will point the way to larger and 
better things another year. You do not want to burden yourself with an 
outfit that will be a large loss if you find you are not fitted for the work. 
Do not be afraid to go a little in debt,but do not make it so large as to be a 
drag for several years. If in doubt what to purchase let it be settled by the 
success or failures of those in nearby towns. The breed that pays, the hatcher 
:hat does good work, the brooder that raises the chicks can be selected by 
getting close to other folk that are in the line of work that you wish to u'.ider- 
take. While you are learning from the experiences of others, be free in 
sharing your knowledge with those who come to you for advice. There are 
no people more open and frank in helping a beginner than poultry owners. 
If you are in doubt of this, visit some neighboring poultry farm or a.-:!: a 
serious question of some exhibitor at the next shov/ you visit. 

Sure Gain Each Year 
Somewhere in our poultry work we should improve over that of last yeai. 
The moment we stand still we cease to go forward. In fact, the moment v/e 
cease to advance we begin to go backward. Let none of us rust, none of us 
"go to seed," none of us get tired in well doing! Did none of you make mis- 
takes in the year that has passed? Did the cold snap nip ''he c">"-:b3 of the 
layers? Would cloth curtains have helped save the combs? Y/ere your houses 
open or closed? Glass or wire fronts? Really, I do not know as it made 
much difference in the houses in my section of countr^^ The temperature was 
twenty below zero, the wind forty to fifty miles an hour. Surely a lot of birds 
got frozen combs and nipped wattles. They were in open front houses, in 
glass front houses, in cloth curtained houses. I had less trouble in houses 
that were tiglitly closed with thin cotton, curtains, where there were rather 
too many birds for the floor space. The more glass in the house the more 
sure was I to find frosted head parts. 

6 



Chapter III 

METHODS OF BROODING 

IT is a mistake to put too many chicks into any brooder. The number that 
was right for day-old chicks may be twice too many at four weeks of 
age. Only this evening the telephone brought me a message of chicken 
trouble at the other end of the line. Four weeks' old chicks were off their 
feed! Were off their legs! Going wrong! They seemed to have been getting 
too high feeding, been too closely housed at night. In their feed they have 
been getting fish scrap in the scratch feed, beef scrap in the dry mash, and 
sour milk in the drinking vessel. Unless the animal food is carefully con- 
sidered it is easy to overfeed and throw the chicks out of condition. In this 
case one of three forms of animal food should have been left out! Then a 
little inquiry brought out the fact that the chicks had done well up to a 
very few days ago. At the start there had been over 80 chicks put into the 
circular, portable brooder. Danger from rats had caused the putting of a 
fine wire fence several inches from the felt of the hover. How had it worked 
out? The chicks were now four weeks old, were five times as large as when 
hatched, and the 80 chicks were twice too many for the brooder space. They 
had increased in size without the notice of the owner, and had reached the 
age when too little air to breathe was injuring them. Loss of appetite, empty 
crops, off their legs! That is always a tale of woe when it comes from a 
poultry keeper. What could I say? Just this : Divide the fiock between two 
brooders, starve the chicks for two or three days, cutting out the beef scrap 
in the dry mash, and supply abundant green food. 

I have no objection to gocd beef scrap, no objection to a high grade fish 
scrap, believe in the good results from feeding sour milk, but it is a mistake 
to feed all three to any one flock of chickens. The quantity of each is so 
small, when all three are used, that there is a great danger of overfeeding 
if you pretend to feed them all. If you start the chicks on sour milk make it 
the chief source of animal food until the chicks are three weeks old, and then 
gradually change to fish or beef scrap. If at all limited in the amount of milk 
at your disposal, by all means keep it for the very young chicks. Sout milk 
starts them right, gets them to growing, and yet does not over-do the feeding 
business. Do not change from sour to sweet, or sweet to sour milk. Feed 
either one or the other and stick to it all along. Sour milk is to be preferred 
to sweet milk in the feeding of chicks or hens because it is not always pos- 
sible to keep milk sweet and the irregularity of feeding sour and sweet milk 
is always sure to set up digestive troubles in the intestinal tract. And another 
thing, the lactic bacteria which cause the souring of milk have been found by 
extensive experiments to have inestimable value in arresting the development 
of harmful bacteria in the intestinal tract, one of which is the dreaded white 
diarrhoea bacteria. 

It is not my purpose to tell you whether to use the heatless brooder, the 
lamp brooder, or the mammoth brooders that are being put out by many 
makers. The fireless or heatless brooder has had a big run. But this much 
can be said, the fireless brooder has seen its day, it is dead, and well that it is, 
for poultry farming cannot succeed where so much risk and labor are 
demanded. If you are brooding 50 chicks or less, better get some hens for 
mothers. It will pay you. 

The coal burning brooder has come into its own and practically every 
plant of any size has one or more of them. They are efficient in every way, 
provided you have a good one. Before purchasing look around and see what 
your neighbors have, how they like them, etc. And by all means never put 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 




Front and Enc! View of a Practical Ercoder Houss 




g; 6 /6' Sxie^ 



Framing of Same Brooder House 




Interior View Showing Roosting Poles and Feed Hopper 
8 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

more chicks under them than that rated number the manufacturer advises. 
It is much easier and safer to put a smaller number under them. I buy the 
500-chick size brooders and never put more than 350 under them. When the 
coal burning stove first became popular 1,000 chicks was the usual number 
to put under them, but poultrymen who did this have seen the folly of their 
ways and you will seldom see one who puts more than 350 chicks under any 
single hover. 

There may be a thousand and one good ways to feed chicks, but in my 
estimation there are just two good economical ways to brood chicks, the first, 
as mentioned before, is with the coal burning stove, and the second is with 
the portable lamp hover that will care for 50 to 75 chicks. I believe the 
outdoor lamp brooder has seen its day of usefulness — it has given way to the 
more modern methods. 

An excellent type of colony coal-heated stove brooder house is the one 
used and recommended by the United States Department of Agriculture on its 
Beltsville, Maryland, experimental farm. This house is 12 x 14, and has 
sufficient room to brood 350-400 chicks. At any rate a house 12 x 14 or 
thereabouts in floor dimensions, with front about 8 feet high in front 
or 5 in back, with two Avindows and muslin space in front, will make an 
excellent place for your stove. Houses of this type can be put on skids and 
moved around in the orchard or corn field or wherever you want to put them. 
If your laying house is divided with solid partitions and is not being occupied 
in the spring months you can put your stove there; however, there is nothing 
like an orchard for growing stock and by all means use it if you have one. 
If you haven't one groiv one this year. 

A 6 X 8 ft. house, 6% feet high in front and 4 feet in the back, with two 
windows and muslin space in front, will make an excellent house for your 
portable hovei's. Such a house is used by several leading breeders, and is 
highly recommended by them. 

A Practical Poultry House 

In order that birds be kept in a healthy condition, and they must be kept 
in a healthy condition if they are to lay a large number of eggs, they must 
have good quarters. By good quarters is meant a house where there is 
sufficient floor space per bird, where ventilation is sufficient to remove the 
moisture, and to keep the house sweet, a house which can be easily cleaned 
and a hcv.se which is not too expensive. 

A most practical colony house for the more northern States has been 
developed by the New Hampshire College of Agriculture and the Mechanic 
Arts, with the United States Department of Agriculture co-operating. Illus- 
trations of this house are shown on another page of this book. 

This colony house is designed for the use of a coal burning brooder and 
will house comfortably 400 chicks. Its advantages are: It is easy to clean 
out and keep clean; it can be moved readily on the average farm with the 
average farm team; there are no draughts on the floor; it is light, the sun- 
light extending far back into the house; it can be used in the winter to house 
fifty laying hens and this is a big advantage because most brooder houses 
are not adapted for use in winter; it is simply constructed and is as cheap 
to build as any other type of good brooder house. 

Construction 

The floor timbers are bolted onto the skids to prevent the skids from 
pulling together or pulling apart when the building is being moved. The 
skids are 6x6, and this size is used to lift the building over the ordinary 
obstructions or rough places met in moving. On the farm, a sapling 6 inches 
or so through can be used, the ends being champered off. These skids are 
run the long way of the building so that they won't interfere with placing 

9 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 




f'msH 

OiCHB^ Wire 



Figure Nc. 4 
A Handy Feed Hopper 




Figure No. 5 
A Very Practical Nest 



10 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

the houses close to each other in winter if one desires to do so. This is a very 
good way to use these houses. In the summer use them on the range or in 
the orchard for the growing chicks, and in the fall haul them up near the 
laying house and butt them together, and they are nearly as handy as a 
long permanent laying house. 

The floors are double to prevent any draughts blowing up through. It 
will be well to use building paper between the floors. The studding used was 
2x4, though 2x3 would answer the purpose as well. The walls are of 
di'op siding, but can be made of matched boards, painted, or of ordinary 
boards, covered with roofing. The drop siding costs a little more but makes 
a building which is somewhat lighter in weight and a great deal better look- 
ing. The objection to building paper on the sides of a portable colony house, 
is that it is very apt to get torn, and patching roofing paper is rather unsatis- 
factory work. 

The roof is straight-edge boards, covered with ordinary roofing, and this 
makes a very good roof. The roof projects at the front and at the back ten 
inches to carry off the water, so that it won't blow or drip back intO' the 
house. 

The top of the window is placed at the plate so as to get the sunlight 
as far back into the house as possible. 

The door is in front, the upper half being open front, covered with one- 
inch mesh wire. A water table or a board inclined, to carry off spattering 
rain, is placed on the lower part of the open front both in the door and in 
the building itself. 

The curtain is hinged at the top and swings back and is held by a fastener 
suspended from the collar beam. This curtain should be covered with thin 
cotton cloth. This curtain should be up each day after the chicks are put 
in, unless it is very cold or windy, and as soon as the nights get at all 
warm and the chicks are three to four weeks old, leave the curtain up at 
night. Because chicks need a good deal of fresh air, and just as long as it 
is warm underneath the hover, the more fresh air they get the better they 
will be. 

The roosting poles are fastened together, and, being hinged at the back, 
they can easily be lifted up and fastened and be out of the way in cleaning 
off the dropping boards. 

The nests should be placed on either or both walls, according to the kind 
selected. Of all places to put nests, don't put them under the dropping 
boards. They are unhandy to get at, they shut off the light form the space 
underneath the dropping boards, and that much floor space is wasted. 
Furthermore, they should be as far away from the roosting quarters as 
possible so that they will be as free as possible from lice and mites. The 
nests should be easily removable and, if made in two tiers, one above the 
other, they should not be made together, because they will be too heavy to 
handle. The bottom of the nest may be made of wire or of a board which is 
hinged on the back side and which can be let doAvn to easily clean. The nest 
box should be one long box with no divisions in it at all, because it is not 
necessary, and there is less liability of crowding and breaking eggs if there 
are no partitions. An illustration of the above described nest is shown else- 
where in this book. 

The feed hopper should be so constructed that there will be no grain 
wasted, that there is gra'n always available to the hens, that the grain feeds 
down readily and yet not too readily, and this hopper, illustrated in this 
book, seems to fill all these requirements. It is not a perfect hopper by any 
means but it works well. 

When the house is used in winter for hens, a pail set in a wooden frame 

11 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

to keep it from tipping over is all right for a drinking fountain. This pail 
may be set just inside the door on the floor. 

Cost 

With the present prices of lumber and with labor at $3.25 a day, this 
house cost approximately $100 to build. The cost of labor was about $33, 
so if a man was to purchase all his materials and do the carpentry work 
himself, if would cost him approximately $67. If a man can get out some 
of the rough boards or dimension stuff on his own place, he can build one of 
these houses at a comparatively small outlay of actual cash. 

Permanent House 

For a permanent house, would recommend that the house be a little 
higher posted and wider, and as long as necessary to get the desired capacity. 
For Northern States we would advise that the house be 18 feet wide and 
22 feet long, this to accommodate 125 hens. The studs would all be 6 inches 
longer in order to get the light as far back into the building as possible and 
also to aid in ventilation. 

The windows should be screwed on to the' studding about 3 feet from 
each end of the front side and the space between the windows, from the plate 
to within 3 feet of the floor, to be entirely open, except for one-inch mesh 
wire. There should, of course, be curtains which can be let down over this 
open space. There should be a door in the front side, even though there are 
several pens of this size, because these doors are convenient in cleaning out 
the house and in many other ways as well. If there are several compart- 
ments, the partitions should be boarded up and doors, which svdng both ways, 
placed in the middle of the house. If as many as six of these pens are built, 
it will be well to install some sort of a simple litter carrier to help in carrying 
grain, green stuff, eggs, etc., because it will save much time and labor. 

If houses such as are described in this book are built, the birds will be in 
good condition, will be free from colds and roup, will lay well and, during 
the breeding period, will be in condition to lay hatchable eggs. 

Now as to directions for operating your stoves or portable hovers, if you 
will follow the directions that come with them you will be carrying out the 
best advice there is on the subject, for no one knows his machine any better 
than does the manufacturer. That same advice can be followed with the 
incubator. Added warning may be given, however, that even, constant 
temperatures are necessary,- if we are to grow vigorous and well developed 
chicks. Just one good chill will cause you serious trouble. I have seen over 
300 chicks in one house dwindle to a paltry few just because the attendant 
one chilly night preferred to sit by his fireside in comfort rather than make 
the rounds of his brooder houses. His fire went out and in the morning he 
found his chicks piled up around the base of the stove. A little attention the 
night before would have saved him a potential $500. Moral — Before going 
to bed make the rounds of your brooders; you will rest easier if you do, and so 
will the chicks. 

Weaning the Chicks 

Under ordinary conditions chicks should have ten weeks of brooding. 
When placed under the hovers the temperatures should be about 98° and 
gradually decreased. Never take the heat away suddenly; doing so will 
surely cause piling up. Later in the brooding period the hover may have to 
be raised to decrease the temperature. If at night you find the chicks are 
spread out around the rim of the hover and quiet, you may feel everything 

12 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

is 0. K., but if you find them pushing away from the hover into the comers 
of the building you had better hang around until conditions are right. At 
night when I fear the chicks might pile in the comers I pile the litter and 
additional shavings in the corners and in the morning spread them out over 
the floor again. 

If the chicks should pile at a time when you are not there, there will be 
much less chance of smothering when this is done, for the chicks will push up 
on the shavings and fall back, whereas they would jam into the comers and 
smother if no protection were placed there. When the chicks are first placed 
under the hover place a wire netting ring of a diameter 6 inches around the 
hover. This will need not be higher than 6 inches. Doing this will teach the 
chicks where the source of heat lies and prevent them straying away from 
the heat. 

If you want to prevent toe picking, leg weakness and other chick troubles 
you will get your chicks out on the ground before ten days have past. The 
sooner, the better. Toe-picking and eye-picking are caused by a chick's 
curiosity and for lack of something else to do. Once this is started on you 
have a vicious habit that is diiRcult to get rid of and the only cure is to take 
the injured victims away at once and turn the chicks out if at all possible. 
Spreading them out over the ground will give them something to do and will 
divert their minds to other things than toe-picking. 



13 



Chapter IV 

FEEDING THE CHICKS 

FORTY-EIGHT hours after hatching my chicks receive their first food 
— a little sharp grit (sharp sand, if possible to get). This places the 
digestive tract in readiness for food that is to come later. At this 
time sour milk is placed before them. Sour milk as a drink is kept 
before them for the entire grov^^ing period. When the chicks are about 60 
hours old a little commercial chick scratch grain is scattered in the litter 
four or five times a day; a hopper containing bran is placed before the chicks 
where they v^rill have access to it at all times for several weeks. During the 
day the chicks have three feedings of hard boiled infertile eggs mixed with 
rolled oats or johnny cake if I do not have too many youngsters. The fol- 
lowing recipe for johnny cake is recommended by the U. S. Department of 
Agriculture : 

Corn meal, 5 pounds 
Infertile eggs, 6 pounds 
Baking soda, 2 tablespoonsful 
Mixed with milk to a stiff batter and baked until quite hard. A mixture 
1 part hard boiled infertile eggs and 3 parts of bread crumbs or relied oats 
will do for a substitute. The johnny cake or substitute is fed twice a day. 
the chicks receiving it at noon and the last feed in the evening. It should be 
broken up into small pieces and fed on a board or pan. By all means feed 
sparingly but feed often, see that their little crops are filled at night. 

After 10 or 12 days the johnny cake or its substitute is discontinued and 
the following growing mash is substituted, and kept before the chicks at all 
times : 

1 pound corn 

1 " standard middlings 
V2 " oatmeal 
1/2 " bran 
V2 " sifted beef scraps 
After the chicks are 10 or 12 weeks old your laying mash can be sub- 
stituted for the growing mash. If that is not done I suggest changing the 
oatmeal to ground oats. 

If you find the commercial chick feed a rather expensive part of your 
rather you might substitute a mixture of 1 part finely cracked corn and 
1 part of cracked wheat, and if not too high in price, 1 part hulled oats. 
When chicks are old enough use whole wheat and whole oats. 

During the growing period the grains should be scattered around the 
house, provided no rain is falling, morning and night. Feed inside, always, 
when the weather is bad or ground wet. Sweet food soon becomes sour, and 
sour food is a good beginning for trouble. 

You should have outdoor mash hoppers, also the water and milk fonts 
should be placed on the range. However, provision should be made for feeding 
indoors when wet days come along and chicks are unable to get out. 

Of course chick grit, charcoal and chick oyster shell should be before 
them at all times. Green food should be fed from the second day on; if your 
range is covered with plenty of green stuff that problem is solved. However, 
I like to cut up onions to feed to the chicks. You cannot imagine how such 
a feeding will stir a group of the little fellows into playful exercise. And, 
too, I have seen an onion feed arouse to brightness an apparently droopy and 
sluggish bunch of chicks. 

Feeding and care such as outlined will put your poultry into the laying 
house in an excellent condition. 

14 



Chapter V 

PULLETS FOR LAYING 

APRIL is the best month of the year to hatch pullets for profits from 
table eggs. It is to the April hatched pullet that we have learned to 
look to be our money maker through the late autumn and early winter 
months. Get out the largest number of chicks this month of any 
month of the spring, that is, if you are breeding Wyandottes, Rocks or Reds. 
The good White Leghorn, perhaps, can be better hatched in May, though April 
hatches may not mature too early. I plan to fill a new house with Leghorn 
pullets first for producing eggs for eating, getting them into it by the first of 
September. Fall egg prices have been wonderfully attractive lately and I 
want my part in the supplying the market after the fifteenth of August. 
You tell me that these early laying pullets will moult in November. Let 
them! They will have given me five to six dozen eggs, at 30 to 40 cents a 
dozen, and will make the best of breeders along in March and April. By the 
time the Leghorn pullets are letting up in egg yield, the pullets of larger 
breeds will be beginning, giving a continuous supply of eggs through all tho 
months. 

April hatched pullets, farm raised, are in demand for back yard flocks. 
More and more are folks finding out that free range raised pullets give the 
best winter egg yield. These buyers are getting keener each year in making 
sure of their getting these pullets. An egg-bred pullet, hatched in April, 
reared properly on the farm, is well worth $2.00 or better for egg production. 
The cull pullets from such a flock, off in comb, lobes or color, or with stubs, 
are not worth just as much, and sell for lower prices. Before the middle of 
March my cull pullets were spoken for, before they were hatched, part of the 
money paid down, the pullets to be delivered when nearly mature next October. 
These pullets will cost me about $1.25 each to raise to six months old, and 
can be sold for $2.00. 

The poultryman, on the farm, can well afford to put a part of his spring 
time into the hatching of pullets for sale, as well as for laying table eggs for 
his own market. There is many an orchard that would be better because of 
the presence of a few hundred growing chicks through the summer. No man 
on town or village lot can compete with the farmer in producing vigorous 
pullets. The farmer can v/ell turn his attention to the poultry side of his 
opportunities. Plan to fill your own poultry buildings with pullets and sell 
the surplus for the purpose I have outlined. April hatched cockerels, if grown 
well and properly finished off, can be sold in July and August at prices that 
will return a moderate profit. February and March hatched cockerels get the 
best of the early summer prices, but April hatched ones are worth producing. 
Yet it is to the pullets that we look for the best of the profits when we con- 
sider the returns from an April hatch. 

Whatever you have been feeding through the winter to your poultry^ 
needs changing with the coming of spring. The hens are tired, have been 
pushed for eggs, and some of them are altogether too fat. They have eaten 
more than they could use for growth and eggs. It has gone to fat. A more 
bulky ration is better fitted to the natural egg season and the milder weather. 
Hens and pullets will lay under almost any conditions during the spring, with 
little or much food, in all sorts of weather. Especially the breeding stock need 
a ration that has much bulky material in it. 

Good Dry Mashes 

While a good laying mash is essentially a good breeding mash, yet it may 
be fed somewhat differently as the requirements demand. If we find the 

15 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

birds overfat in the spring months we cut down on the grain which is the fat- 
tening food, in order to make them eat more of the protein or egg-making 
mash, and if the reverse is true and we find the birds somewhat thin and out 
of condition we close the mash hoppers for part of the day and increase the 
grain in order to curtail egg production slightly and to put some flesh and 
fat on the birds. Birds in proper flesh which have not laid their "eyes out" 
will produce more and better fertilized eggs than those which are overfat or 
thin in flesh. So at breeding time our thoughts turn to the condition of our 
birds and we adjust the laying ration to meet our needs. The following 
rations are well known by the writer and have given excellent results in the 
poultry house: 

Corn meal 250 pounds 

Standard midlings 100 

Bran 200 

Gluten feed 100 

Ground oats 100 " 

Alfalfa meal 50 

Beef scrap 200 '* 

Salt 6 

If you are feeding milk as a drink reduce the beef scrap ICO pounds. 

The New Jersey Station Mash 

Corn meal 100 pounds 

Bran 100 

Middlings 100 

Ground oats 100 *' 

Beef scrap 100 " 

If your birds do not appear to be up to normal condition give a moist 
sour milk mash once a day to which has been added 3 tablespoonsful to 10 
quarts of the mash of the following tonic : 

i pound of powdered gentian 

M " " " ginger 

^/4 " " " saltpeter 

% " " " iron sulphate 

Continue this feeding for 14 days, giving all the mash the birds will 
clean up in 20 minutes. This is an excellent tonic and has been in use at the 
Maine and New Jersey Experiemnt Stations for years. 

If at any time I find the inmates of the pens showing sluggishness, then 
the hoppers are closed at night and opened at noon. 

The stock is still getting mangels for green food, a single feed of whole 
grains in the late afternoon, with oyster shell and grit in hoppers. Under 
this plan of feeding, with common care, large yards and clean air to breathe, 
we expect, and, get, fertile eggs that will produce sturdy chicks. 

The Farm Garden 

It is one of the pleasures of the farm to have a good garden. Tlie farmer 
who is making poultry his "money crop" well knows the benefit of growing 
garden and field crops. It is getting late if your seeds have not been pur- 
chased. Tliere is as much difference in seeds as in poultry. Quality seeds 
cost more than the common kind — and are worth much more than you pay. 
Seeds are like fertilizer — the higher the price the more you get for your 
money. 

16 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

The farm garden will need a big part set apart for mangels. Often you 
can double your crop by getting seeds that are well bred. I would take my 
chances on buying tomato seed anywhere, but select my seedsman with care 
from whom I buy my mangel seed. I avoid the seedsmen who use overdrawn 
pictures in the catalogues, as well as overdrawn statements in print. I prefer 
to get my seed of firms who are producers of part of the seeds they sell, or 
at least those that have made a reputation for honesty of purpose. The seeds 
need to be bought, and on hand, some time before you expect to need them. 

Trees and Bushes 

Trees and bushes add to the value of the farm, and to the happiness of 
the family. Most of us buy each spring something along that line. I have 
been well repaid for the setting out of a few cherry trees and quince bushes 
since I came on the farm five years ago. Cherry trees set out in a quarter 
acre hen yard, five years ago, are now 8 to 12 feet high, and have given small 
crops for two years. This year should see them loaded with cherries fot 
the birds and the Sanborns. Quinces set out five years ago have given two 
full crops, and some set out three years ago gave a little fruit last year. 
Red raspberries have done the best of anything of the bush kind, though some 
large blackberries have done fairly well. Strawberries had made a half crop 
each year, owing to the dry weather each June for four years, and not paid 
expenses. 



17 



Chapter VI 
GREEN FOODS 

I DO NOT know from experience that alfalfa is better than clover for hens 
and chicks, but I hope to have a good home-raised supply for another fall 
and winter. I started an acre of alfalfa last August, and it has gone 

through our severe winter nicely. It was green by the middle of April, 
had put out many new leaves by the 20th of April, and bids fair to be a profit- 
able part of my farm. I tried to do all that is insisted on as essential to 
alfalfa growing, using lime, good seed, the inoculated soil, and clean culture, 
and hope to succeed with it. The young plants that I have examined this 
spring are loaded with the nodules that seem to be needed to make profitable 
alfalfa growing. I have always made good use of the lawn clippings, feeding 
to chicks and old stock, but shall be glad to have the alfalfa to fill in when 
the dry weather turns the lawn brown and the grass tough and indigestible. 

Red clover, alsike clover and alfalfa make a good foundation for the 
mashes that we find so useful in our poultry work on the farm. Surely we 
can raise one of these on farms in every part of the country, having our 
market, right at heme, where we can get the one hundred cents of the con- 
sumer's dollar. Instead of paying high prices for cut clover or alfalfa, or 
going without either, we can raise our own, run it through the cutter, and 
have a high grade article to use freely. If it takes more muscle to cut the 
clover than you can spare, belt on the little gasoline engine that cuts your 
wood, pumps your water, turns the churn, or runs the milking machines in 
the barn. The small power engine is to have a big place on the coming 
profitable poultry farm. 

Grow some mangels or cabbages this summer for the coming winter's 
supply of green foor. A split mangel placed on a nail about 12 to 14 inches 
off the floor makes an excellent winter succulence, and hung in this manner 
provides a method of exercise. Cabbages hung on a string about 14 inches off 
the floor are equally as good. There may be nothing quite as good as sprouted 
oats for winter, but most of us are unable to find the time to care for them, 
particularly when we have many birds to feed. 

Fine cut green alfalfa or clover will make an excellent summer succulent 
food for birds housed in yards where no green food is available. 

Green Feed 

Every hen and chick on the place is getting green food six times a week. 
Even the little chicks in the brooder house get their chance to get the 
feed or let it alone. A big wheelbarrow full is cut each afternoon, part of it 
run through the cutter for the poultry and the remainder fed to the cows as 
they come to the barn from the pasture. That given the baby chicks is run 
through the cutter a second time to get more of the fine lengths that they 
can eat. Why do I feed six days when there are seven in the week? To save 
the Sunday labor. On Saturday afternoon we cut a double supply, feeding 
it a little later in the day to the poultry, so that there is plenty left over to 
be found bright and early Sunday morning as the hens come from the roost. 
That for the cows is left on the barn floor and fed before they go out to 
pasture in the morning. That whole field will have to be cut, made into hay 
for "cut alfalfa" for the laying stock next winter. I am expecting to get 
three good crops of alfalfa, with much less wheat in the second and third. 
I could get a fourth crop in the autumn, but prefer to leave it to protect the 
roots from injury from frost another spring. Until this year there have 
always been times in the summer when I found my supply of green food either 

18 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

short or tough. It looks as though I have something extra fine in the com- 
bination of winter wheat and alfalfa. I have a later seeding of wheat and 
winter vetch, that is an experiment, that also bids fair to get me green food 
and good hay for various uses. When the alfalfa has reached the stage for 
hay making it is cut and stored away for winter feeding of stock. 

A visitor to the farm yesterday told me that he has had several acres of 
alfalfa for a number of years, that the abundant use of the cut alfalfa in 
winter gave him eggs when his neighbors had none. There is a lot of satis- 
faction in having a big mow of alfalfa in the barn that can be used as freely 
as you wish. You do not stop to consider the cost as you do when you buy it 
by the bag and pay near $2.00 a hundred pounds for it. Cut clover makes 
splendid litter for the brooders and for the floors of the coops where the hen 
and chicks are housed. There are farmers whom I know who keep cut clover 
or alfalfa before their laying stock all through the shut-in days of the year, 
getting more eggs because of the helpful influence of the food. So long as a 
pound of dry alfalfa has the feeding value of a pound of bran I shall try to 
raise my supply. I realize that I know little on the subject, but if other folks 
have raised four tons to the acre I shall try to do the same. Do not under- 
stand me as saying that the chicks out on the free range of the grass land 
will eat much of the cut alfalfa. However, they have the chance to eat it if 
they desire, and I have been surprised many times to see how much green 
food that I supply they will eat in the dry days of mid-summer. The chicks 
in the brooders get their cut grass fed them on the top of the warm hover, 
where it will cure into good hay if not quickly eaten while fresh. They make 
way with lots of it in both green and dry state, and what is left makes good 
litter. 



19 




Chapter VII 
MONEY IN EGGS 

NE-HALF the profit of my farm comes from the poultry plant. 
Two-thirds of this is from the sale of eggs. Eggs sell for the low 
price of the year in late March and eai'ly April, increase with the 
opening of May, mounting up till Thanksgiving and Christmas, hold- 
ing high selling prices well into mid-winter. There is increased profit in 
summer eggs. Food is cheap, eggs come in full measure, and the demand is 
unlimited. 

May eggs go quickly and at fnir profit?. ^'Iks who bought eggs in mid- 
winter by the dozen, buy them in several dozen lots at this time of the year. 
No need to hunt up new customers! The old ones take all the surplus of late 
spring and early summer. 

There is good profit in putting down eggs in water glass. If at any tima 
you have a surplus quantity of eggs that go slowly they can be held in water 
glass that can be had at poultry supply house or drug store. Eggs "put 
down" are never improved by keeping. They are not equal to nev/ laid eggs, 
but are better than many that come in cases through the hot summer months. 
Eggs, to keep well and be satisfactory, should be packed down while still 
new-laid, unfertile, clean, unwashed. So far as they fall short in any of 
these particulars, just so far are they likely to be off in quality. The best 
place to use these put-down eggs is in your own home. Use them in the fall 
and winter so as to be able to sell the fi-esh eggs that are scarce and high. 
If you put them down when selling for 20 cents a dozen, and use them when 
eggs are 40 to 60 cents a dozen, you will realize that the transaction is a good 
one. If you sell the water glass eggs, sell them for what they are — home-kept 
eggs. You should find a ready market for them at 10 to 15 cents below the 
price of nearby eggs, a good product at a moderate price. Be sure to take 
them from pens that have no male bird, pack as they come from the nest, and 
keep in a cool and clean place. 

Break Up the Broody Hens 

It is neither necessary nor best to let hens go through the broody 
period as they desire. If you have no need of their hatching for you, break 
up the wish to hug the nest for three or more weeks. Get the idea out of 
their head, get them back to laying, and increase the amount of e^g money for 
the year. One of cur readers, in a personal letter to me, says: "Neighbors 
are irritated because I break up my broodies instead of loaning to them. 
I dislike to be selfish, but I do not like to run the risk of disease being broi^ght 
back into my flock, and the less broodies I have the bigger my egg record!" 

I would make an exception and set most of the good yearling hen? that 
I intend to take over into another year to produce eggs for hatching. These 
yearling hens need to have the surplus fat taken off, as is well done in the 
thi'ee weeks of "watchful waiting." The hens that I have succeeded to keeping 
into the fifth and sixth years have been those that have had the rest that comes 
in setting for a hatch and the weeks of raising a bunch of chicks. But the 
commercial flock, the rank and file of the layers, should be promptly broken up 
at the first indication of broodiness. It does not do to wait till they have 
remained on the nest a week. Feed these hens well. Do not attempt to starve 
them. Reduce the quantity of food that fattens, but feed all the green food 
they will eat, with a moderate amount of meat or fish scrap. 

Do what the Egg Contest management does — break them up at the start 
of the hatching fever. Taken early you do not need to confine them over four 

20 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

days, when they can be returned to the pen of layers. There is no better 
arrangement to break up the desire of the hen that wants to set, than the 
hung up, slatted coop. In this coop, with water and dry mash within reach, 
the hen wil retain her weight and not suffer in any way. Let one of the hens 
cling to her nest for several days and you have a month's job to get her to 
laying again. Take them at the start and get a better egg yield from your 
flock. The hen that lays a few eggs , goes broody, lays a few more eggs, 
again goes broody, had better be marketed as fresh killed poultry. On the 
contrary, the hen that seldom cares to set is the one that the farmer wants 
to retain for future breeding purposes. It was one of the recommendations 
of the winning pen in the California Egg Laying Contest that not a hen in it 
went broody during the entire year. This is not rare in the Leghorns, yet this 
winning pen was of an American variety. 

Hatching Results 

You will be interested, with me, in the results of hatching from a basket 
of eggs that came to me in April from California. I had 30 eggs sent me, 
laid by the six hens that as a pen won a first prize against 66 other pens. 
These eggs must have been held some time to get 30 eggs from six hens in 
March. Then you will be interested to know that these six hens were mated to 
their own sire. Thirty eggs, saved as outlined, nine days in the express 
journey across the continent, held by me two days before setting. Put under 
three good hens. Tested out on eighth day; 17 clear eggs, 1 dead germ, 12 
strong germs, of which 11 hatched and were living at 10 days. Under all 
those conditions it was a good hatch. I was satisfied. You may ask why so 
many infertile eggs? I do not know they were infertile. All clear eggs are 
not infertile. Holding, express travel, age may have killed the germ before 
it had a chance to start. Heat may have just started the germ to growing 
and yet it was killed when too small to be seen in testing. I have no fault to 
find with that hatch ! 



21 



Chapter VIII 

SAVING TIME 

HOW can the farmer get time to attend to several hundred hens and 
raise five or six hundred chickens each year? I do not know how you 
can do it, but I could not get the results I do if I did not use all the horse 
power at my command. Hand work is cut down to the limits and horse 
strength put in its place. Let me give a single instance. I used to kill weeds 
when I had to! Now I kill them before I see them. That is a queer statement 
to make but let me tell you the facts. I save half the labor of caring for my 
corn crop over what I used to do 20 years ago. I save a quarter of the work 
on the potato field over my practice of 15 years ago. To do this I make great 
use of the smoothing harrow. The ground is plowed and when a few mild 
days have started the sprouting of the weed seeds I run the slant-tooth 
harrow over the ground. Look sharp and you will see millions of white weed 
stems that are broken loose from their earth connections, left to dry and die. 
In a few days the corn is put in with a planter. Before it is due to appear 
I run over the field again, killing more weeds, and when the corn is three 
inches high a third harrowing is done. Will it not kill the corn as well as the 
weeds? Not at all. The weeds have little root system, while the corn is rooted 
below the ends of the teeth of the harrow, out of reach. When a harrow 
tooth strikes a hill of corn it slips between the shoots of corn, pulling out any 
little weeds that may be there. As the horse walks across the field the harrow 
will leave clean culture for six feet v/ide. Almost no hand work is needed 
through the growing season. Instead of the long, hard, laborious hours of 
hard work, the horse does it better in a quarter of the time. The treatment 
of potatoes is much the same, the harrow being used as long as it can get 
through the growing potato vines. The time saved in cultivating these two 
crops will provide for the raising of 500 chicks. 

We also save time by the use of the hopper plan of feeding both hens and 
growing chicks. The layers, through the summer, have their hoppers for 
dry mash; when the birds feel the need of food they can find a hopper full 
of good food within reach. We fill the dry mash hoppers once a week, but 
inspect them on our regular tour of duty to see that there is plenty of the 
feed in them and that they are not clogged. One can save time if he will 
use self-feeding grain hoppers but I doubt if money can be saved if these 
rather expensive hoppers are used to any great extent. There is the watering 
in the morning, the giving of green food in the late afternoon, and the picking 
up of eggs at dark. The chickens must be let out of the coops in the early 
morning, their water dishes filled, and the doors closed on them at dusk. It 
does take many steps, but far from the very many that I used to take on my 
farm of 20 years ago. Modern ways of doing things have cut down the hours 
of labor, are giving us as good chicks as ever were raised, and the egg yield 
is far better than when I used to give long hours to the work. If it were not 
for these newer ways of caring for and feeding our poultry we certainly 
should not be able to begin haying in June and get it completed by the Fourth 
of July. As it is, we are getting much the lai'ger profit from our poultry 
than from fruit, garden truck, or milk. The keeping of more poultry has 
helped make both ends meet on several farms that I have known about. 



Chapter IX 
CULLING THE FLOCK 

THE live poultryman is culling all the time ; when collecting eggs for 
incubator use he culls out the oversized, undersized and irregular eggs, 
and if he can, gets after the hens laying these. He puts the weakling 
chicks out of their misery; he culls out the growing birds that seem to 
be lagging in growth or generally weak; he culls the layers that lack con- 
stitutional vigor, brightness and other apparent characteristics that go with 
egg production and good breeding. 

Think what you may about the value of the many egg laying contests, 
you cannot have failed to notice that many of the poor pen records have been 
due to some of the hens that either laid few eggs or none at all. If in these 
carefully selected pens so many drones are included, what about the home 
flock made up of all the pullets reared? In the average flock there must be 
many hens that never pay the cost of the grain given them. To keep these 
hens, worse yet to breed from them, is to continue owning a flock that does 
not help pay off the mortgage. The drones must go! The early laying pullets 
should be banded, and those that have done little laying before the beginning 
of the breeding season, kept out of the breeding pen. The trapnest is to be 
used more freely in the future than in the past — if for no other purpose than 
to get rid of the drones. To breed from low" producers is to defeat your own 
purpose in keeping poultry on the farm. Trapnests can be bought at various 
prices from the makers, or you can follow the directions as given in several 
of the State Experiment bulletins. The trapnest shuts in the hen till you 
can reach her, get her egg, release her and make the necessary record on 
paper. The trapnest will not do it all alone. The man has a part in the 
getting of all the facts that will go in the building up of a paying farm stock. 
To the well selected stock, selected with all the facts of the trapnest, must 
be added good care, housing, good food. Not only these must be kept in mind 
but from the time of hatching the pullets have to get care that will keep them 
growing continuously. 

For the man who does not trapnest or has not had the time to watch 
his laying birds closely, August and September are the months for him to 
make up for lost time. First, it can be said that Wyandottes, Rocks, Reds 
and other American class birds will hardly produce profitably after their 
second year, and unless other circumstances enter, should be sold off at this 
period. The same can be said of Leghorns and other light breeds after their 
third year. 

The Molt 

Now the birds that have molted before September should be culled. In 
other words, other things being equal, those that have not started to molt by 
the last of August or first of September should be saved. The trapnest has 
proven the worth of these late molters. As a rule these birds have laid on 
through the summer without a breakdown which causes so many to go into a 
summer molt. These late molters are quick molters, while the early molters 
as a rule take three to four months to put on a new coat of feathers. 

Your late molters can always be told by the dirty and ruffled appearance 
of their plumage. Upon examination one can determine whether or not 
molting has started, by the absence of feathers from parts of the body, or 
presence of small new feathers throughout. Usually the neck or hackle 
feathers molt first, followed by body, tail and wing feathers, respectively. 

23 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

Other Factors 

During non-laying periods fowls accumulate a surplus of fat beneath the 
skin. When laying this surplus fat is called upon, with that fed in the feed, to 
make yolks of the eggs. 

With the non-producer you will find a fatty deposit-like ring around the 
vent and eye. The vent will likewise be contracted and dry, the pelvic bones 
(the two points that are felt on either side of the vent) will be pinched and 
usually thick and hard from fat deposits. The abdomen will be contracted to 
some degree, hard and coarse to the touch. The shanks, or in general the 
yellow-skinned birds of the Leghorns, Rocks, Wyandottes and Reds, will be 
thick and clear yellow for the same reason. The comb will be contracted and 
of a pale color, the wattles will be so, likewise, and the face of the non- 
producer will usually be well filled out, somewhat coarse and masculine 
looking. 

To put in the inverse order, the vent of the layer will be expanded, moist 
and of pinkish color. The pelvic bones will be well spread, thin and pliable; 
the shanks will have faded in color to a pinkish hue and probably grown 
thinner. The comb and wattles will have expanded and taken on a bright 
red color. They will feel sort of moxy to the touch. The abdomen will have 
expanded and become softer and finer to the touch. The activities of the egg 
organs, the expansion of the center lines caused by the increased work they 
have to do when a hen is laying and naturally eating more feed, are the 
causes for the changes in the abdominal region. 

For this same reason the distance between the keel, or as it is sometimes 
called, the breast bone, and the pelvic bones, increases. If you can place three 
or more fingers laterally between these bones you can be reasonably sure 
the bird is, or about to come into laying condition. In the procedure the pelvic 
bones should be spread so that at least two fingers or more can be placed 
between them. 

In the non-producer Leghorn you will hardly be able to get one finger 
between these, nor more than two betvy^een pelvic and keel. For the American 
breeds this general rule will hold fcr two and three fingers, respectively. 

These general rules do not always lead to accurate culling, by any means; 
they are, however, helpful. I have seen as many as 20 birds culled out of 
a flock of 50 without reducing the original egg production more than one egg. 
At any rate, it is a sane and economical method to proceed with when the 
trapnest is not used. The trapnest is the Supreme Judge always. 

No one single factor should determine you in keeping or culling out a 
particular individual; it is better to depend upon the agreement of several 
factors. 

Selling the Old Stock 

Do not sell hens at last year's prices before looking into present prices 
at nearby cities. The men who come to the farm to buy will not tell you of 
the advance in meat prices and you should be well posted as the summer ends 
and fall days come en. Instead of asking what they are willing to pay for 
your live hens, why not start the new habit of making your prices. Certainly 
every other line of business fixes its own selling price. Try it on this month 
in disposing of the old stock. With a short crop of poultry this year, an 
increasing call for good poultry, it is a good time to make the new move of 
letting the buyer pay your own price! Will he buy? Not always, but he will 
be more likely to accept your offers in the near future. 

Eggs put down in water glass, or sold on the common market, will be all 
the better if infertile. Except in the breeding months of the year the rooster 
is a nuisance. You cannot do without him through the spring months, but he 
can be turned into a little cash now. 

24 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

The cockerels go to market when they bring the best price. Just when 
to sell these young males depends on what your market demands. The 
Leghorn cockerels usually return the most profit when sold as broilers. The 
Rock or Wyandotte may be held longer and marketed as small roasters. The 
farmer with an egg route, or milk route, finds that his customers will take 
many a broiler, or roaster, if he works his market as he should. It is one 
way to get the whole dollar of value, rather than get much less when the 
chicks are shipped to a distant city. 

Selling Mature Pullets 

Farm reared pullets are worth more than those produced in village yards 
or on town lots. Well fed, well housed, farm pullets are in great demand and 
will be quickly taken up this year. For egg production there is good value 
in such a pullet at $1.50 to $2.00. White Leghorn pullets should be worth 
slightly less than Rocks or Wyandottes, because of their less value when you 
need to turn them into cash for dressed poultry. March hatched Leghorns 
will be laying this month, and the larger breeds will get into the same line 
of work by October. As they mature, perhaps a month before the coming of 
the first egg, it will be good business to either get them into their per- 
manent houses or else sell them to the folks who are wanting them. To 
continue to keep them in their summer quarters, or to hold them beyond the 
laying age, is to lose money. Decide what you will do with the pullets — and 
then do it quickly. 

Fancy Stock 

Some of the farms that I visit keep some fancy stock. One in a nearby 
State carried last winter over 2,000 White Leghorn layers for producing 
table eggs. In a small house, and large yards, was also kept a good bunch 
of Buff Wyandcttes of the "blue ribbon" sort. The owner of the farm told 
me he kept the Leghorns for profit and the Wyandottes for his own pleasure. 
But I know that he turned a good lot of money out of the fancy stock that 
pleased his fancy. No farm should start into the growing of poultry on a 
large scale with the idea of getting much out of fancy breeding and showing. 
It should start with the producing of a fine line of table egsjs and dressed 
poultry, and in the course of years might branch out into the fancy lines. 
It takes much more knowledge and experience to handle the fancy side than 
the practical side. Pcultrykeeping takes all the skill and patience of the 
average man, without the fret and worry of the showing and selling of high- 
class stock. I am not discouraging the man who would breed fancy stock. 
but I do want the farmer to understand what is needed to succeed along either 
or both lines. For what you have to put into the work, I believe the most 
returns will come in the running your poultry part of the farm along th*^ 
common, practical lines. Six months of the year you will have to sell your 
eggs for eating, half your surplus cockerels must be sold for meat, so you 
need birds that Mall fill these requirements. I have always kept this in mind 
in the running of my own farm, and have had no reason to doubt the fact 
that I am in the right. 

If the farmer has fancy stock to spare he should be reminded that, like 
business poultry, there is a short crop. Already many birds have changed 
hands at good prices, and I know one farmer who breeds fancy stock who 
has booked orders for half the pullets now out on range. There will be a 
sharp advance in pullet prices before the coming of freezing weather, and it 
is well to understand this before accepting "bargain prices" during the sum- 
mer. March and April chicks are few, May and June chicks more numerous, 
but all together they cannot begin to fill the demand that is right in sight. 

25 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

Farmers who have any surplus stock, old or young, will hardly need to dispose 
of it at the prices that ranged five or less years ago. A short space advertise- 
ment, or even a few lines in the classified department of some good poultry 
journal, should put him in touch with buyers who will take all he can well 
spare. Poultry farmers in particular, are beginning to get their share of 
good business. He is getting more independent in many ways, and money 
comes easier than ever before in the history of this country. He is getting 
a fair price for his potatoes and good prices for his fresh-laid table eggs. 
If the farmer cannot make a good living this year it is because of something 
that he is not responsible for. 

Selling at the Door 

Can the farmer afford to bother with small sales of eggs and poultry at 
the door? In these days of autos and vacations, there is much passing of 
possible customers. The way-back farm is no longer unseen and unknown. 
Many folks would gladly buy fresh eggs and home dressed poultry if they 
knew they could be had right at the farm. Case eggs and cold storage 
poultry are used by many folks because of the doubtful value of the other 
sort offered at the market. If you can get the retail city prices at your 
door you will be making more money and pleasing the city people who make 
good use of their motor cars. A neat blackboard on a tree near the entrance 
to the farm, a simple statement in chalk of what you have to sell, prices 
plainly stated, will draw buyers that will thank you for the satisfaction you 
can offer. Berries, eggs, dressed poultry, sweet corn and many other vege- 
tables can be sold in this manner if you have the wish to enter into this line 
of business. 



Chapter X 

SUMMER IN THE POULTRY YARD 

EVERYTHING gets warmed up before the beginning of August, and 
poultry have a hard time of it on the farm unless it is kept in mind. 
I am in the habit of breaking up most of my matings by the middle 
of July, and doubling the number of birds in the best shaded yards. 
Yards without trees are emptied of their hen contents and let grow up to 
weeds. I have some runs that extend into small groves and these are the 
ones to give summer comfort to the laying stock. Then the windows are 
left wide open, with doors fastened back, giving as much circulation of air 
as can be had. The chicks in the small coops will suffer from heat unless 
let out early in the morning. Most of the chicken coops have ventilation 
only on the front, and the flocks need to be given a chance of escape before 
the morning sun is too hot. One New Hampshire farm has partly solved 
'die fresh air problem by having coops that are open on all four sides, with 
the roosts well up in the double slant roof. The sides are covered with inch 
wire netting, keeping out all night prowlers, and the birds perch high enough 
to escape serious injury from high winds and sudden showers. Certainly 
they raise splendid pullets, with never a sign of roup, which speaks a good 
word for their idea of a good chicken coop. 

The sunshine not only warms up the inside of the coops and houses, but 
the water and feed fountains get their attention. A water dish will heat 
up in an hour's time if right cut in the open, supplying water that is insipid, 
if nothing worse. Keep the fountains in the shade, that the water may keep 
more satisfying and pure. 

Introducing Disease 

View all offers of pullets by stray peddlers with suspicion. They may 
look well today and be broken out with chickenpox or roup tomorrow. I have 
known poultry folks to sell off stock that appeared well — on the breaking out 
of illness in a few other flocks. These peddlers pick up a lot of good looking 
stuff that may cause you the loss of many anxious days and money. Even 
the coming into your barnyard of one of these teams may leave you scattered 
germ life to infect your plant. While chickenpox may not be a serious illness 
in August weather, the disease may linger in the farm, to break out in late 
autumn days with terrible results. While poultry diseases do not bring the 
disaster that does hog cholera, they are serious enough to be kept in mind 
by the poultry farmer. It cost one farm in New England, last year, over 
$400 because of chickenpox brought in by a Sunday afternoon call by a 
neighbor. Probably he brought the infection on his shoes, stuck on in his 
visits to his own infected flocks. He did not realize what he had on hand, he 
did not know that he was a carrier of the illness, but that did not save the 
other fellow from a hard experience. 

Drinking Water 

Water is absolutely needed, in full quantities, always within reach, if 
you would get good growth in chicks or eggs from mature hens. The egg is 
composed of about 659^ water and mature fowl .559(-, growing fowl aproxi- 
mately the same. I have known poultrymen v/ho were careful about supplying 
plenty of good food, who were careless as to quality of the drinking water. 
One poultryman who has won more than a half dozen blue ribbons at the 
Madison Square Garden Show never cleaned out his water pails through the 
entire summer months. Worse than that, he set these pails out in the hot 

27 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

sun, out in the yards, just inside the wire netting, in full exposure to the 
hot summer's sun. From April to October these pails stood there, water 
poured in through the wire netting, from day to day as it was drank or it 
evaporated. Dust, leaves, filth got into the pails, settled to the bottom, only 
to be stirred up in the adding of new water. Sour, filthy, strong smelling! 
Do you wonder that such a man was also careless in the shipping out of ill 
chicks and diseased hens? Water costs little more than expense of taking 
and caring for it. Because it is cheap we are not as careful in its use as if 
it was the value of milk. 

Perhaps the first thing to do in the early morning is to fill the water 
dishes in all the houses, as well as those out on the chicken range. Water is 
the first need of poultry as they come off the roost or out of the small houses. 
You will not be doing the right thing to have them go to the water dish and 
find it empty. Filling the water fountains is the first chore on the well con- 
ducted poultry farm. Shall the old water be emptied out? How often shall 
we wash out the pail or fountain? That depends. If the dishes were filled 
the night before, if the night had been cool and quiet, then it might not be 
needed to do more than to fill the dishes to the brim. On the other hand, if 
the water was warm, dust scratched into it, or droppings seen in it, then 
there is nothing left to do except to empty and scrub clean. The water needs 
to be as near clean and cool as you can get it. I am not saying that many 
hens get sick because they drink unclean water, but I do urge that safety ia 
in giving the best that is at our disposal. We have trouble enough as it is 
with the most careful care, not to court it by giving water that we would 
not be willing to wash in. 

In the laying houses, with the full hoppers of dry mash before the 
hens, the water dish should be filled up at night, also, that the stock may 
have the water to mix with the dry food. Long before you appear on the 
scene the hens will have made many dozen trips between feed box and water 
pail. Tlie hopper feeding of dry grains means the drinking of more water 
than if given in wet mashes. You have to supply the water in some way, 
whether you use dry or wet mashes. 

During cold weather you should provide some means to prevent freezing. 
There are several water heating fountains on the market that will pay their 
cost to you in a short time. Poultry do not require warm water but water with 
the chill taken cut is ideal. Fowls must have water the minute they get off 
the roost and as a rule most of us are not there to give it to them unless 
heated fountains have been filled the night before. With no water before 
them, fowls will refuse to eat dry mash, and when they do that what hap- 
pens? Fewer eggs. 

Few farms can afford to put in any special system of taking water to 
the houses. Some of the best farms I know depend on small brooks for the 
water for the hens and chickens. Few of us have any such good fortune 
as to have running water across our farms, and we need to take the full pails 
in cur hands to the cocps and houses. Where water pressure is at hand, it 
helps to have a hydrant near some central part of the poultry plant. Through 
the summer and fall well water or spring water has a low temperature that 
helps us supply something that fills the needs of the feathered stock. The 
water dishes need to be so made as to easily be made clean. Any fountain 
that cannot be taken apart and scrubbed is net fit for the poultry yard. 
You have to get at every square inch of the surface of the parts once in a 
while, and if you are not able to do this the water will soon become foul. 

The water dishes need first attention in the morning — and replenishing, 
at least near to roosting time in the afternoon. I do not want my poultry to 

28 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

come off the roost in the morning and find an empty water fountain, neither 
do I care to have them go to the roost at night while still thirsty. 

Early Feeding 

The molting hen and the maturing pullet need lots of good food. The 
fall days are none too long for them to range and eat enough to keep them 
right for best results. They need early feeding! 

In the laying houses the wide open food hoppers present the opportunity 
to take food as they get off the perch as dawn comes on. You do not have 
to think of this if you have the dry mash ready prepared and put into the 
boxes or feed hoppers. The chicks that are still on range, in the smaller 
coops, seldom have feed whex'e they can get it till the doors are opened and 
they have the range before them. The rule with me is to let out the pullets 
after the water dishes are filled. They get the full, first drink, then rush 
to the iron mash hoppers or scatter out on the range after the stray grains 
left from the feeding of the night before. In the center of this chick field 
of tvro acres are hung several automatic grain feeders, arrangements that 
let down the grain only as they are worked by the chicks. The larger chicks 
seem to get the first chance at these feeders, the smaller chicks taking to the 
grass and scattered grain. It is easy to tell where the grain was hand scat- 
tered the night before, by the bunches of chicks that gather here and there 
on the grass. With a hopper of dry mash, one of scratch feed, a well filled 
water dish and access to growing grass, we expect good gro\vth and early 
maturity. The well grown pullets can hardly help passing into paying poultry 
if given half a chance at good food and water. The fall months, especially 
the opening one of September, will see these big pullets eating, drinking and 
resting, only to repeat the program all through the day. Pullets handled in 
this way are not always looking for the coming of the feed pail, watching 
for your steps, following you as you go about your work. You have heard 
it said many times, that the chicks should be kept a little hungry if you 
wanted the best results. That has some foundation in theory and fact, but 
should not be taken too earnestly. There is a great difference between a 
stuffed chick and a well fed one! There is such a thing as overfeeding of 
poultry, but I find few good hen men who are too liberal with the food. The 
careful observer will notice when the birds are overfed and take pains to 
withhold food till the appetite returns. The only time in the day when 
I make sure they are well filled is at night as they get ready for the roost. 

Room for the Growing Chicks 

Fall finds the farmer busy harvesting his corn, digging potatoes, drying 
his second crop hay, seeding down new grass fields. He is more than busy! 
In his hurried work with the poultry he is often led to overlook the fact 
that his chicks are getting too large for their quarters. The July hatched 
chicks may still be in the brooders, the June cockerel? and pullets still 
together in the roosting coops, the early hatched chicks subject to the dangers 
from crowded roosts. Crowded chicks get too little pure air to breathe; get 
injured by the contaminated air of accumulated droppings. It is now time 
to plan to give these chicks of ours better accommodations for the autumn 
months. Getting many of them into the winter houses will release some of 
the roosting coops for the brooder flocks. Taking away all cockerels will 
give the space to the pullets — your profit-makers of the coming twelve months. 
Push on the males to the market, that the hens and pullets may have their 
room! 

Home-Grown Grain 

I am getting many inquiries as to the prospects of my wheat and com. 
The wheat has been harvested, late in July, and gave a good crop of grain. 

29 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

The straw is not so good as in the past four dry years, being of less yellow 
color and more brittle. However, it is worth much more than it cost and 
will be helpful to egg production when used as winter scratch material. 
Most of my wheat was cut while still green, and made into good hay. I found 
it was going to head out while still short, and I decided that good hay was 
to be preferred to poor straw and grain. 

The corn crop is the best for years. It is all grown near the chicken 
range, on ground that was in gi'ass for five years, and has come through the 
season with no set-backs of any sort. I raise the white flint, Rhode Island 
corn, the sort that we eastern people think is sweeter and better for home 
use. Here it is called "Rhode Island johnny cake corn," and more than one 
good poultryman that I know is selling this com for twice what he pays 
for common western corn. So far as the corn crop is concerned, I only wish 
I had planted three times as much last spring. I am paying $1.90 per 100 
pounds for corn from my grain man, thanks to the war and speculators, and 
a larger com field would have saved me a bunch of money. What I have — 
and its quality and quantity — will be carefully harvested and fed out. The 
early maturing ears are saved for seed as well as for cracking for baby chick 
feed another spring. No chicks of mine get store corn before they are six 
weeks of age. This hard, well dried, early corn as chick feed lets me raise 
more chicks than under the former plan of feeding. 

My two small lots of buckwheat look well, and, barring frost, will give 
me some good grain and a lot of poor bedding. I like the quick-growing 
buckwheat. It fits into many a crop rotation. 



30 



Chapter XI 

SUCCESSFUL POULTRY FARMS 

IN a neighboring State, not far away, is a farm that I have watched with 
much interest. It is making good money from table eggs and the broilers 
that come in the producing of good pullets. How large is this farm? Let 

me tell you in egg yield. Last year this farm failed only once in shipping 
on the 8:00 a. m. train on Wednesday four cases of eggs to one buyer. 
There was a week in October when the hens were molting and the pullets not 
hard at work when there were too few eggs to make up the fourth case. This 
year the contract calls for six cases every Wednesday morning and I am told 
that it will be kept. This is practically a case of eggs a day in the non- 
productive month of October. Of course there are other buyers, of course th* 
egg production goes way up beyond this six cases in the late winter and 
early spring. In fact except in the dull days of autumn the eggs laid will 
be double this number of cases mentioned. 

I have been interested in the methods followed at this farm, as well as 
the rations fed, and the plan of growing the pullets. The owner of the farm 
has the sensible idea that every factor is important in the getting of large 
numbers of table eggs. From the setting of the egg to the killing of the 
two or three-year-old hen he believes that everything should be well cared for. 

To get prolific laying pullets he gets up before the sun every day in the 
year. Through the spring and summer he lets his chicks out of the summer 
coops with the appearing of the sun. He tells me he never wants the pullets 
to flutter against the wire front of his roosting coops. They get all the day- 
light hours to eat, drink and wander as they please through grass-covered 
range, or gather in the shelter of the fruit trees or brush along the walls. 

These chicks find full feed hoppers waiting for them as they come out of 
the coops. The pullets have free access to these hoppers up to the last minute 
before getting into the croops for the short night. In other words — he gives 
his pullets all the benefits of country living, with as little of the disadvantages 
as possible of the closed coops and shut-in life of the night. He fights lice 
and mites before they are expected. He does not wait till they appear, but 
gets after them when they are not yet due. Houses and coops get the annual 
spraying with creosote before the coming of the hot days of late springtime. 

Autumn Eggs 

You want me to tell you how he gets autumn eggs? One way that helps 
is to keep the yearling and two-year-old hens through the molt. He is not 
tempted to sell his hens in June for 18 cents a pound when he knows he will 
get less in October and November. What he loses on the sale of dressed 
poultry he makes up — several times over— in the splendid egg laying of sum- 
mer and autumn. His hens are well fed through the hot months. No forced 
molt is practiced. His scratch feed is given in small quantities in the eai'ly 
morning, and in full feeds at evening. This summer and fall he is mixing 
his scratch feed as follows: By measure, two parts heavy oats, two parts 
wheat, two parts barley, one part cracked corn. 

He feeds his dry mash in a long, well protected hopper, after his dinner 
time each day. Enough is given to take them over a period of 24 hours. This 
mash is different from some that I have known or used, but it is giving him 
fine results with his business White Leghorns. By measure, he mixes: Six 
parts bran, two parts middlings, four parts alfalfa, four parts provender, two 
parts beef scrap, one part charcoal. 

Every day the hens get something in the line of green food. It may be 
rape, cabbage, mangel leaves — something is given. The owner tells me he 

31 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

sees a drop in egg yield if he lets up on the green food for a single day. 
Three days later than the missing food of green leaves will be seen the drop 
in the number of eggs. 

CiaUing 

With all the gocd care, with all the well balanced feeds, with the best 
houses and proper rearing, this man is sure that his success is decidedly 

helped by his annual culling of the breeding stock. He breeds up according 
to the best light he has. Not only does he get rid of weaklings as they show 
up, net only does he rear with care, but he runs his yearling hens through a 
rigid testing at the molting season. His hatching is largely done from 
yearling, tv/o-year-old and three-year-old hens. When the pullets get to be 
18 months old, and have been laying table eggs for a year, they go through 
his hands. He really handles every one that has lived to that age. I cannot 
go into his ideas of what makes up a business and healthy hen, but simply 
leave this fact in ycvir mind, that he has a real process of weeding out the 
undesirables before they ever get into the breeding pens. With this plan 
followed for some years he has increased the average egg production and got 
more and more eggs when they bring the good prices. Selling wholesale, as 
does the man I am speaking of, I am satisfied with 5 cents less a dozen, with 
no wait for my money, or fuss with the woman who buys at the homes. The 
retail egg route locks nice when viewed from the standpoint of no experience, 
some folks make good at it, but for the man with a large plant, or at a 
distance from market, the wholesale trade is the best. Then as regards the 
holding on to hens for breeding and for eggs. I have no question in my own 
mind that the hen to breed from had best be at least two years of age. They 
lay the large egg, they lay when you want to do the bulk of your hatching, 
and if well handled will fill in the weeks when the pullets are getting down 
to business. Summer and fall eggs are getting to be very profitable; weather 
and feed are with you in the getting of them, and the large hen's egg is more 
in demand than the smaller pullet egg or early autumn. Even a three or 
four-year-old tested hen is not too old to keep for another year if she has 
proven a good breeder, prepotent, in other words. Cocks that have proven 
their worth are usually good for 4 or 5 years. One of the best hens I ever 
owned was 9 years old when she died, laying over 100 eggs in her sixth year, 
and giving mo over 50 chicks from spring eggs. For the production of table 
eggs the pulkt is the choice of most poultrymen, and rightly, too, but for the 
all round needs of the successful business poultry plant the older birds should 
be well considered. 

Using Your Eyes 

As a fact, much of the success, of this poultryman in the nearby State 
is due to using his eyes. In other words, he sees what many folks would 
overlook. Let me apply this to his feeding. As he goes through the large 
houses he keeps his mind from day-dreaming. He notices that the hens are 
picking out every particle of beef scrap, or cut clover, from the dry mash. 
They need more of these articles than they are getting! That house gets 
more of these, or the single ingredient, when he next feeds. He feeds the 
hens at night, and "sees" that there is still grain in the litter from previous 
feeding. Does he feed as usual? No, he passes that pen. Or the hens are 
gathered in a corner, perhaps under the drop boards, and do not come to 
meet him. This flock gets no supper from his hand. 

There are times, as when the pullets are putting on the final growth 
before maturity or when laying heavily, that a hen eats much more than 
at others. There are times when one will consume twice the mash as at 

32 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

other times. The man with the clear eye, the thoughtful mind, feeds his 
poultry as the painter mixed his paints, "with brains!" So this friend of 
mine cares for his poultry. He certainly lets very little escape his notice 
and, best of all, he puts into daily use what he knows is best for his success 
with rearing chicks and getting eggs. 

Your Market for Eggs and Poultry 

Where shall we sell the product of our poultry farm? Shall we take the 
prices offered us by our local country store or reach out for some other outlet 
in a distant town or city? Conditions must help us settle the question. To 
unload the product of a large poultry plant onto the small store is to lower 
the pi'ice to ourselves and neighbors. Often more can be had 50 miles away 
than right at home. Perhaps you can ship 100 miles, paying express, too, and 
then get 5 to 10 cents a dozen more than the local men will pay you. No 
one need be obliged to sell his eggs and poultry nearby in these days of fair 
and low parcel post charges. A better market is at hand if some effort is 
put forth to get in touch with those who want a fresh article and are willing 
to pay for it. 

It seldom pays to go to the neighbors to get their eggs to help make up 
the number promised. Better fall short in your shipment than send out some 
eggs that are doubtful in quality. Your neighbors may have the best inten- 
tions in the world, but when it comes to taking chances on the quality of any 
certain eggs they may find in a new place — you cannot trust them. An egg 
that looks fresh on the outside may be stale inside. Some years ago I knew 
a farm that took a contract to sell a case of eggs every day in the year, 
Sundays and all, for 35 cents a dozen. Prices were lower than now. Thirty- 
five cents then would mean 50 cents now. You would like such a contract 
now, would you not? This farm did well, filled its contract till the autumn 
days came on. The pullets had not got into full laying. The hens were 
laying fewer eegs as they got into the molt. There was not a case of eggs 
a day. What was to be done? To the neighbors, of course. In a few days 
complaints came back of bad eggs, "chicks in them." This could not continue, 
as the eggs were used by a large wholesale drug house in its manufacturing 
and on the soda counter of its retail city drug store. The eggs were to be 
guaranteed to be all right without testing. So the drug house hunted up 
another poultry plant who made good promises — only to fail when it came to 
the following autumn. It would have been much better to have shipped the 
cases of eggs short a dozen or two rather than have gone when your knowledge 
of egg quality could not help. 

In these days of high prices high quality is demanded. It pays to cater 
to this demand and you cannot do it unless you absolutely know the quality 
of every egg shipped. 

The best poultry farms that I know are making excellent returns on the 
investments. They are doing it by applying good business ideas to producing 
their sale products as well as to selling in the markets that return good cash 
for their eggs and poultry. It is no time to get discouraged. Those who 
lose courage and get out of the poultry side farming, and many will, only 
help you to get better prices. Stay in the work and use your hands and 
brains in your operations with chicks and hens. 



33 



Chapter XII 

FALL MONTHS IN THE POULTRY PLANT 

I HAVE known successful poultry farms to have their beginning at all 
months of the year. Some of them have begun in the springtime, when 
the "fever" was on, while a few have started in late autumn with the 

buying of a few good breeding stock. In fact, few farms have made 
any great start outside of the spring months of April and May. 

This is not saying that November is not a fit month to begin, that 
November is too late to make a start. November is a splendid month to 
begin planning that will be followed by active operations in mid-winter. 
Knowing what I do now, with the light of every 20 years of poultry work, I 
would really get busy in February, of all months of the year. I would make 
my plans in the fall, get my incubator and brooders, have my houses ready, 
buy my own pens of birds to lay the eggs for hatching, and be ready to start 
at the best season to hatch chicks, be ready for the best month to brood 
chicks, be ready to get the chicks out on grass range at the best season of the 
whole year. Yes, it would be at the fall of the year, now that I got at work 
on my poultry books and papers, got in touch with the men and firms that 
had what I needed for a start, and so I would have times and conditions 
nearly right to win with my opening attempt at chicken work. 

Buying Pullets 

Many pullets will change hands at this time of the year. High cost of 
feed will make some folks sell many pullets to save expense. High price of, 
eggs will lead village and town folks to buy pullets for the back-yard hen 
house. If there is a surplus of pullets, which shall be sold? You will be 
offered twice as much for the early hatched pullets as for those of later 
hatch weighing twice as much. Sell the later ones if you can find buyers 
for them. A pullet that is laying in November is worth three times as much 
money as one hatched three months later. These late hatched pullets are 
discouraging property for the poultryman. If you have room for only a 
certain number of layers, and have more pullets than you can house, by all 
means sell them even at what it has cost to raise them. I advise holding 
on to pullets, as eggs will be high all through the coming year. Food values 
cannot help being high with the hard experiences that the world is seeing. 
Pullets hatched in June and July, though they do not lay in the autumn, will 
be money makers in late winter, and be your best producers of eggs next 
autum. Perhaps you can fix up the barn cellar, or some unused shed or 
wagon house, and put the surplus stock in there. 

If you are buying pullets take any you can get, provided the price is right 
for the size and age you get. Whatever you buy, avoid runts and too small 
birds for their age. While they may lay eggs, they will be few in number, 
small in size, and injure the quality of your product. Where eggs are 50 to 
60 cents a dozen in November and December a laying pullet is well worth 
$2.00. Pullets weighing from 5 to 6 pounds can be sold next year for dressed 
poultry for $1.25, perhaps more, and it is not always necessary to pay over 
$1.25 or $1.50, even this month. 

I am coming more and more to believe that Plymouth Rocks, R. I. Reds 
and Wyandottes should be hatched out between March 15th and April 10th. 
I used to think that the early hatched chicks would surely molt in October 
or November, but seldom see one in late years. The best laying hen I have 
at an egg laying contest was hatched March 26th, and laid 238 eggs up to 
October 16th. Last week she laid 5 eggs, the week before 5 eggs, and bids 

34 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

fair to do as well the next fifteen days before the ending of the year's 
contest. I speak of this hen because she illustrates what I mean by fairly 
early hatching, becoming mature in mid-autumn, a big and vigorous pullet 
that must have been a profitable laying proposition. I find that Wyandotte 
pullets hatched before the 10th of April reach good size, become mature by 
October 15th, and are laying before the 1st of November, In every flock of 
any size there are always a few precocious pullets that lay at 4 or 4% months, 
but I am always sorry to see them. I want the pullets to get nearly standard 
weight before beginning to lay, and then I know that the eggs will be good 
size, and the egg yield will be steady and profitable. 

Shall Alfalfa Be Fed? 

I have been asked by many of my readers if the Storrs Formula for dry 
mash would not be improved by the addition of alfalfa. Perhaps it would. 
I am led to saying this because of what has been gotten in egg yield at the 
North American Egg Contest in Pennsylvania. This contest was held at 
Storrs for two years and then transferred to Pennsylvania. This Storrs dry 
mash has been fed all these three years of the contest. This year the egg 
record is better than the first two years. The only change in the feed has 
been the addition of an alfalfa sod. The yards were full of alfalfa, it even 
grew up through the earth floor of the houses that sheltered the contest, 
hens. They had alfalfa all through the months of the year. At Storrs they 
had mangel beets to feed in the early months of the winter, and dried beet 
pulp wet with water later in the spring. They did not get the egg records 
as did the Pennsylvania contest, but this may have been due to a more severe 
winter and higher winds. Alfalfa is good hen feed if you are moderate in 
its winter use. There is danger that its great bulk when swelled will prevent 
the hens eating enough other food to give the nourishment needed to produce 
lots of eggs. I find that the paying poultry farms feed something in the line 
of alfalfa, cabbage, mangels, beet pulp. If you use the Storrs formula for 
mash feed, do not add over one-tenths by weight of alfalfa to it. Better 
feed the alfalfa in another hopper! 

High Protein Feeds 

As prices of feeds is on the increase more attention should be given to 
protein contents. If beef scrap should rise, as it has not much to date, then 
we may see fit to look to other sources for part of the protein that we have 
been getting in the beef or fish scrap. We may substitute, perhaps, linseed 
oil meal, cotton seed meal, gluten feed, brewers' dried grains, or even buck- 
wheat midds. Even dried ground beans and peas may be found useful in 
the ration. What the future may have in store for us we little guess, but 
some changes in our feeding are on the way. Profitable poultry plants may 
have to use these modified formulas in order to retain the profit desired. The 
New York College of Agriculture has lately issued a little card on the bal- 
ancing of rations for dairy cows. Its facts will be worth remembering. It 
gives the following protein per cent in these feeds : 

Malt sprouts 26.-3 

Linseed oil meal 33.9 

Cotton seed meal 45.3 

Gluten feed ...- 2-5.0 

Brewers' dried grains 25.0 

Buckwheat midds 26.7 

Cull beans 21.6 

Pea meal 20.2 

Distillers' grains 31.2 

35 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

Higher prices of grain is going to make the poultry farmer grow more 
of his feeds. There will be larger acreage of corn, mangels, cabbage, wheat, 
barley and buckwheat. The wide range on which the chicks have been reared 
for years will be turned over and put into corn. The large yards will be 
seeded to rye and clover, or even alfalfa. Tlie rich droppings of the hens 
and chicks will become available when some growing crop is allowed to ripen 
its seed or roots. 

I have seen more corn fields this year than ever before. The growing 
chicks have had free range in the shade of the com stalks, and chicks and 
corn 'have both done better because of the presence of the other. When you 
can raise two crops on the same field — corn and chicks — you are "making two 
blades of grass to grow where one grew before." Rye put in on large fields 
near the poultry buildings makes possible a fine winter range on green fields. 
The rye will not be injured and the hens will lay all the more winter eggs. 

Winter Housing 

Right or wrong, the tendency today is to keep the laying stock in the 
buildings through the winter months. Less and less are the hens given access 
to the yards, and more and more they are given abundant air in the winter 
houses. The open fronts seem to have taken the place of the outside yards, 
at least in the cold months. Free access of air and sunlight, feeding ot 
scratch feed in deep litter, full hoppers of a balanced dry mash, with green 
food, seems to have largely settled the maintaining of health in winter as 
well as getting more or less eggs. For laying quarters in most climates a 
shed-roof house 20 feet deep, 9 feet high in front and 5V2 in the rear, makes 
a very practical house that is economical to construct. This house can be 
built in sections and added on to as the needs demand. For each 20-foot 
section you should provide about 40 square feet of glass, or in other words, 
two windows placed in either end of front and as near the top as possible, 
to permit the late afternoon sun to penetrate deeply into the house. For 
every 20 square feet of floor space you should provide about 1 square foot of 
open or muslin space. Muslin frames should be used and hung on hinges 
or a slide so that they may be opened, partly opened or entirely closed on 
stormy and bitter days. The muslin must be kept clean and free from dust, 
for unless this is done you will have nothing more or less than a tight housQ 
that is conducive to colds and roup. Dampness will occur. 

This type of house has been successfully used by the New Jersey Station 
and at Syracuse University for several years and is recommended by them. 
For more detailed plans on this building write the Advocate. 

Larger egg yield has not altogether come from improved methods of 
care and feeding in winter, but is partly due to earlier hatching and better 
feeding through the growing of the chickens. They reach maturity at a 
more suitable season, are better housed in late autumn, and then the good 
care and balanced feeds bring the desired results. Early getting into winter 
quarters has reduced the number of cases of fall colds or catarrhs and roup. 
I v/r.:? on a well known farm last week where not a case of colds has been 
seen this autumn. There was not a chicken that had a dischar^-e nt the 
nostrils. This is partly due to the fine weather of the entire autumn, but 
more largely to the fresh air quarters of the winter houses. Chicks left in 
the small coops too long are the ones that give the cases of canker, colds 
and roup. 



36 



Chapter XIII 
EARLY PRODUCTION SPELLS SUCCESS 

NA.TURALLY a year's work begins with the coming of the first pullet 
egg, and ends twelve months later. Here in America we try to get our 
stock matured so as to begin laying in late October, or before the 
coming of severe winter weather. That we fail in doing this is 
testified to by the shortage of eggs and the high prices that prevail. Records 
seem to prove that the pullet that starts to lay in late autumn is the one that 
does the largest laying of the following year. I know there are exceptions 
to this, but as a rule it is true. 

Will not yearling hens lay as many eggs in the twelve months following 
November first as will the pullets? They seldom do. Sometimes you will get 
hens that were poor layers as pullets that do lay more eggs in the second 
year. I am not saying that hens may not be profitable on the farm, but I 
look to the pullets to give the large egg profits of the flock. The best use 
you can make of the hens, yearling or older, is to have them produce your 
eggs for hatching. Many of the undesirable pullets will be weeded out by 
death or selection in the opening year of work, and leave a larger proportion 
of "good ones." 

Coming back to egg records, let me suggest that trapnest records are 
the only safe ones. More than this, trapnest records of some v/ell supervised 
egg contest are what the reading public are watching. Private egg records 
have been given some attention in the past, taken with some reservations 
and accepted as the best to be had. Today the weekly egg reports of the 
Storrs Egg Contest, the Missouri Contest, the North American Contest, as 
well as others, are being scanned closely as they appear in newspaper or 
bulletin. The buying public are asking that well attested records be given. 
I am glad to see that some of the well advertised egg farms are entering 
their stock in some contest. They have the courage of their convictions and 
are willing to risk whatever the results may be. It will be only a few years 
when we shall see more of these plants getting into the publicity of some big 
station egg laying contest. Last week I had a report from a farm that I 
have visited, a farm where trapnests have been used for several years, that 
the last year had shown that one pullet had laid 306 eggs. It would take 
courage to go into print and claim this record, and yet I do not doubt the 
truth of it. This practical farm has taken a forward step when it started 
the month with a pen of pullets at the Storrs Agricultural College in Con- 
necticut. I shall v/atch the work of that pen to see if the owner had such 
knowledge of his stock that he could select birds that would lay over 200 
eggs each as an average. He would be tempted, if he had the records to 
select from, to send full sisters of that 306-egg bird of his. Did he? I do 
not know. This is a fact, however, some of the best layers I know, this 
winter, are full sisters to one of the big record layers of an Eastern contest. 
Whether they will reach her high number of eggs will be shown by the final 
report at the close of next October's work. 

Does Blood Tell? 

It certainly does. Experiment station records are showing this every 
day. High egg production is an hereditary characteristic. Where would we 
get our high producing strains if this were not the case? 

Males, the get of high producing dams, will usually prove prepotent and 
often raise the production of most flocks above the average. High producing 
females are also capable of transmitting their qualities to their offspring. 

37 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

It was once thought high fecundity (egg production) was transmitted only 
through the male, but late experiments and tests covering several generations 
indicate females have this quality also. Experiments that are now in the 
making to show to more advantage the true value of the male and female, 
or in other words the proportionate value of one over the other in trans- 
mitting this quality. 

Don't be misled into believing that every 250-egg hen will produce her 
like, or that every male by a 250-egg female will produce 250-egg females. 
Wouldn't it be easy if such were the case! Two hundred-egg strains are 
scarce, yet 250 scarcer, and 300 out o' sight. Several hens laying 200 eggs 
mated to a fecund male does not constitute a strain of 200-egg layers. When 
that mating produces in its succeeding generations a vast majority of 200-egg 
females, and the succeeding generations do likewise, we might say we have 
a 200-egg strain. But such does rarely if ever occur. We are getting closer 
to it, however, every day, and I feel the time is not far off when the average 
production of extremely large flocks will be mighty close to 200 eggs. 

High egg production can be bred into standard bred fowl as readily as in 
the ordinary bird we see in most flocks. Mr. Harry Lamon, senior poultry- 
man of the U. S. Department of Agriculture at the Government Experimental 
Farm, Bellsville, Maryland, has demonstrated beyond a doubt that high egg 
production and exhibition qualities can go hand in hand. If you had been 
at the recent Madison Square Garden Show you would have seen some of 
the finest exhibition quality Leghorns and Wyandottes your eyes ever feasted 
on. Every one of the entries Mr. Lamon showed had two or more dams 
back of them that had layed over 200 eggs. Every female he showed had 
produced over 200 eggs. These birds were not in competition, but had they 
been a good many blue ribbons would have gone home with them. Producing 
this type of stock opens more avenues for the poultryman; he can sell indi- 
viduals at high prices for their beauty or exhibition qualities as well as for 
their laying qualities. 

Profit in Eggs 

There is a reaction from depending on sale of eggs for hatching and 
for stock breeding, to the production of table eggs and dressed poultry* 
I do not want you to understand that by this I mean that fancy poultry is 
being less bred but that eggs and dressed poultry are seen to be the founda- 
tion of paying poultry. It takes a man with a special bent, a special 
make-up, to handle fancy breeds along high grade and show lines. Few 
farms ever succeed that begin with the fancy lines as the prominent factor. 
More and more we are finding purebred stock filling the houses of the 
paying plants. More and more we find that the poultry farms that continue 
ten years are those that have contracts for eggs by the case, dressed poultry 
by the dozen. 

There are two classes of poultry farms, egg farms, that I know something 
about. The older class, not many of them today, fill up the houses with half- 
grown pullets in late autumn and expect and get few winter eggs before March. 
These farms pay from $1.00 to $1.50 for each pullet, give them indifferent 
care and feed through the winter, and make perhaps SO cents to $1.00 per 
layer before October. The owners of these plants, it seems to me, are 
"penny wise — pound foolish" in their method of getting returns. 

The larger, and better class, rear or buy first-class pullets, get them 
well mature before cold weather, and get eggs enough to hold an all year 
round trade. Tliey plan to keep their contract to deliver one, two or more 
cases of eggs every week in the year. They have old hens enough to get a 
moderate number of eggs in the autumn, enough big pullets to begin laying 

38 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

as the hens get into the last of the molt. Some of these latter farms are 
clearing $2.00 to $25.00 for every hen and pullet owned on January first. 
This sort of farmer has birds that will dress off to meet the highest require- 
ments of a critical market. That means an extra 5 cents per pound added 
profit to the cash returns of the year. This progressive sort of farm has 
thoroughbred stock, is proud of it, takes better care of it, and does get 
chances to sell eggs for hatching and birds for breeding. A paying farm of 
this kind gets from $3.00 to $5.00 for breeding pullets in the autumn, as 
well as $5.00 to $10.00 for cockerels for breeding. Some of them are selling 
day-old chicks, to the gain of the buyer as well as increasing the thickness 
of the pocketbook. 

The man who is getting an egg profit of $1.00 per hen is never happy 
in telling of it, is half ashamed of it, and it all reacts on his daily habits 
on the farm. On the other hand, the man who is really making a business 
success of poultry keeping is bending his energy to getting the best out of 
his hens, is right in line for added profits, is in demand for lecture worK 
and a writer on poultry matters. We had such a man in Mr. Tobey at the 
last winter session of the Connecticut Poultry Association. He left the 
banking business in Bosfccn, drawn by his love for the country, and started 
a poultry farm in New Hampshire. He has followed out the line that I have 
said was the proper one to get the best in profits in poultry. He has a strain 
of hens that are sturdy, good layers, good profit makers, as well as stock that 
takes the eye of the user of fancy dressed poultry. He is in demand as a 
lecturer, could have more engagements than he will take, and as several said 
to me last summer: "Tobey is all right!" Nothing would take him back to 
the city; nothing would make him leave the country farm; nothing would 
make him lose his interest in business birds. Yet he is a fancier, and knows 
it, loving his good looking birds, and breeding with care. Through it all he 
clings to his belief that, dollars to doughnuts, the profit is in farm poultry 
on the modem farm. 



39 



Chapter XIV 

ARTIFICIAL ILLUMINATION 

PROPERLY handled, lights will increase egg production and profits 
through the v/inter months. We all know winter eggs bring the top 
prices, and anything we can do to encourage biddy towards shelling' 
mt a few more of the precious ovals during this time without weakening 
her constitutionally, is good business. Every successful poultry farm I knov/ 
of is using some form of illumination with great success. As a warning I 
want to say that faulty management, irregularity, indifference on the part 
of the attendant will cause havoc in the pens. Tlie use of lights is an 
added responsibility. Remember that! 

Electric lights are the best to use, followed by gas lanterns and kerosene 
lanterns. I doubt if the latter will pay to fool with in most flocks. I have 
tried them without much success. Electric lights are cheaper in every way. 
With sufficient birds — 500 or more — I am confident the installation of a 
lighting unit will pay where you do not have public current. It will certainly 
prove its usefulness in the household, with all the drudgery of filling lamps 
and lanterns eliminated, and the convenience of the electric iron, mangle, 
toaster, percolator, besides the glory of having lights on the turn of a 
switch. 

During the winter of 1919-20 the New Jersey Experiment Station found 
that 600 pullets without lights returned a profit of $3.30 per bird; 500 given 
morning light, $5.07 per bird, and 100 pullets given an evening lunch returned 
$5.48 per bird. Using a Western Electric Farm Lighting unit on 1,100 birds, 
the fuel and operating cost for the winter months was 4.4 cents per bird. 
"One egg increase paid the fuel costs." 

There are four methods of using lights — morning lights, evening lights, 
a combination of both, and the lunch-hour method. The first and last of these 
methods have proven to be the most satisfactory. 

Morning lights should be on from 4:00 a. m. until dawn, operating 
from November 1st with pullets, January 1st with hens, until April 1st or 
later. 

The evening lunch-hour method particularly appeals to me. In my case 
it has proven more economical and less bothersome and less worry. 

The lights are turned on at 9 o'clock and permitted to run for 1 hour. 
At 9 the crops are empty and the birds are ready for a good feed of grains. 
It serves the purpose for which lights are used by breaking up the long 
period of darkness with a feeding period. With morning and evening lights 
the rest period is much less, creating a danger in awakening the fowl. As a 
New Jersey station circular states, the lunch-hour method does not break 
into the normal time of going to or coming off the roosts, eliminates the 
4:00 a. m. watering and feeding, and still gives the birds plenty of time to 
fill up. 

Birds under lights lay more eggs because they have the time to eat more 
feed and not because they have more time to go to the nests, as some might 
believe. So a heavier feeding schedule is necessary, with a different method of 
feeding. When lights are used there should be four feedings of grain — 
morning at dawn, noon, evening (about 3:30) and at 9 if the lunch-hour 
scheme is used. About 14 or 15 pounds of grains to 100 hens will be suf- 
ficient. Of course the mash hoppers are open at all times. 

Two 25-watt lamps to every 400 square feet of floor space, hung to 
within 5 feet of the floor over the feeding area. 

Your experiment station will probably have some interesting data on 
artificial illumination that I would sugq-e=t you write for. 

40 



Chapter XV 

DECEMBER EGGS 

OFTEN December eggs give the best indication of a poultryman's 
training. The farm that can show a good December record need not 
look far for better methods of care and feeding. To get these eggs 
in the opening month of the winter, take forethought. Long ago, last 
winter, the eggs were selected and put into the machine. The chicks were 
hatched in March or April, taken through the growing months without a 
setback. Feed has been well selected and bountiful, housing conditions have 
been well thought out, the chicks have not had to fight lice and mites. From 
the egg to the laying pen the pullets have had good food, good care, good 
coops. Even back of the setting of the eggs must have been careful breeding 
for several generations. The secret of December eggs is good poultry methods 
through the months and years. No man can take a pen of pullets and get 
December eggs unless there has been much care expended months before. 

We have the pullets in their winter pens. What shall we feed and how 
give it? That brings us down to earth again and trying to be helpful. We 
need to realize that December days are short. There are few hours to scratch 
in the litter, more time on the roost. Winter rations need to be more con- 
centrated than those of summer. I have seen formulas used on large farms 
that were too bulky, at least for the early winter months. There is no best 
ration to get eggs in cold weather. There are dozens of good formulas in 
print. Nearly every agricultural college has a formula different from the 
others. Any of these will give good results if fed with some observation of 
its effect. It is hard to get a good formula that does not contain animal food. 
Vegetable protein does not seem to fill the place of that found in beef and 
fish scrap, green bone or milk. The farm that has a supply of sour or butter- 
milk has a form of protein that is hard to equal in any other food. Sweet 
milk is best fed by mixing with ground grain and fed in the form of the 
wet mash. Better keep the milk till sour, use the dry mash, and keep down 
the labor of the plant. 

Most farms that I know have settled down on the use of the wide open 
dry mash hopper, green food of some sort at noon, with either the feeding 
of grain by hand in the middle of the afternoon or the constant use of one 
of the commercial scratch feed hoppers. Litter is kept on the floors, water 
given twice a day, and a careful oversight is given to the hens by the man 
who is in charge. Attention to little details may be the cause of success 
rather than failure. Some of the failures in poultry keeping might have 
succeeded if the man had stayed in the kitchen and the wife fed and cared 
for the hens. Women have long been known to be successful in getting winter 
eggs. I think this is due to their seeing what is needed to give results. One 
man I know went through his hen house several times a day for a week and 
did not see that there was one hen that was filling a nest with eggs in a 
corner of the floor under the roost board. This was in cold February, eggs 
freezing at night, and every egg worth good money for hatching. A woman 
would have been on hand to catch the warm egg. 

If your pullets are immature, under weight, you cannot look for eggs till 
the birds have made more growth. If the hens molted in late November you 
should not look for eggs from them in December. It takes time to get on a 
coat of new feathers, and toward the close of the molt the drain on the hen 
is larger than at the beginning. 

Winter eggs — December eggs — come from hens that are in dry houses, 
breathing good air, not pushing each other in endeavor to get on the roost 

41 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

at night. They have some chance to scratch without getting in the way of 
the other birds. They are not overfed or underfed. If December eggs were 
easy to get, eggs would net be the price they are this year. Plenty of eggs 
mean low selling price. 

Poultry Manure 

Every poultryman realizes that there is good value in poultry droppings. 
Use a yard for a few years, and then leave it empty for a summer, and see 
how the rank growth of weeds will spring up. Go out on the range, where 
the chicks were reared the year before, and see the tall grass that is around 
the places v/here the roosting coops were set! The poultry manure should be 
considered in figuring up the profits. 

Fresh, clear droppings from the board under the roosts is worth around 
20 cents a bushel. It is worth more, rather than less. Dried droppings is 
worth even more, if the manure has been kept from sending off its ammonia. 
Road dust, garden soil, hardwood sawdust, dry muck, acid phosphate or 
ground plaster can well be used to keep the droppings from losing fertility. 
I have usually depended on the garden soil that is put into the houses in the 
autumn, put in from three to six inches deep. After cleaning off the droppings 
boards, a dozen handfuls or so are gathered from the earth floor and spread 
over the boards. Then when the next cleaning comes off it is well mixed 
together. Through the winter months about half the droppings fall on the 
dropping boards and half into the litter of the floor. That on the boards 
can be taken off and stored for spring use for fertilizer. That on the floor is 
well mixed into the earth and litter and is cleaned out in the spring and 
spread as removed. This earth from the floor is much richer when taken 
out than when put in. If it were not for the vv^eed seeds from the grain fed, 
and from weeds that are used for added litter, this rich material could be 
used for any garden or field. However, it is best to spread it on grass land 
or pasture, where the danger of strange weeds getting a start is small. 
A neighboring- farmer always puts his cleanings from the house onto the 
pasture. 

The droppings that can be saved in a pure state can well be mixed with 
other materials and be directly used for growing crops. One of the best of 
the agricultural colleges advises the addition of one to two pounds of acid 
phosphate to every bushel of droppings for its keeping powers. 

Top Dressing Grass 

Mix 1,000 pounds of hen droppings, 60 pounds of superphosphate, and 
40 pounds of potash. For raising garden truck mix: 1,000 pounds droppings, 
250 pounds superphosphate, 100 pounds sulphate of potash. We are told that 
this formula is equal to fertilizer ordinarily sold at $40 a ton. 

Corn Fertilizer 

Hen droppino:s 1,000 pounds 

Superphosphate 40 " 

Muriate potash 100 

Use 1% tons of this to an acre for corn, or 1 ton for an acre of oats. 

Manure for Mangels 

For an acre of cattle beets, or mangels, as most of us call them, use the 

garden formula. That is, for an acre you will require: 

Hen droppings 3,000 pounds 

Superphosphate 750 " 

Sulphate of potash 300 

This should give a big yield of mangels and leave some material over for later 

cropping. 

42 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

It is well to consider the collection, and holding, of poultry manure in 
these months when it is so easily gathered and preserved. With high prices 
that are sure to be asked for even ordinary commercial fertilizers the coming 
season, we should see to it that we save what we can of that right on the 
plant. In case that potash cannot be had at a price that we can afford to 
pay, then it will call for a more moderate spreading of the pure hen droppings. 
Too much of these droppings will give a green growth that breaks down in 
hard or severe winds. So be content with shorter grass and more hard stems. 

There is no better place to keep these droppings than on a board floor 
cf a small house, or in a dry corner of the barn, where they can be turned 
over from time to time. They should not be allowed to "cake" or form into 
hard layers, but moved often enough to keep in good handling shape. Then 
v/hen you come to use them in the spring or summer there will be little time 
required to get them readj. 



43 



Chapter XVI 

SELECTION OF BREEDING STOCK 

I CARE not how careful was your selection of breeders last year, more 
time and patience should be put into the selecting this year. If you 
make up your matings the early part of January, then go over them all 

before you save a single egg to hatch. You will find 10 to 20 per cent 
of the birds that will not pass the test of your good judgment. Have a 
higher standard this year than last. If you had left out of your mating last 
year that cockerel that was a little doubtful as to stamina you would not have 
had so many late maturing pullets and so many runts in the fattening cockerel 
pen. If you have any doubt as to the value of any bird, promptly reject her 
from the pen. Keep her as a layer, if you wish, but for a breeder — never! 
Such stock always is costly to the breeder, and a decided damage to the man 
who buys hatching eggs or breeding stock from your yards. 

Egg yield and standard quality are going to play an important part in 
the success or failure of many farms the coming five years. Those breeds 
that will give the buying public what they want along lines of eggs and 
poultry are going to take a forward movement. My word for it, cockerels 
from hens of high egg record are going to sell for good money next autumn. 
You are going to be asked: "What is the record of the hen behind this male?"' 
If you cannot answer the question satisfactorily that man is going elsewhere 
for his new blood. It has been said that trapnests were going by. It may 
have been true 10 years back, but today there are more in use than at any 
time in 20 years. It has been found true that facts as to egg yield can be 
applied to the buying of stock or in the mating of pens. You are going to 
do most of your hatching from hens that have made their good record as 
pullets, hens that are mated to males from known good male ancestry. It 
will not do to lean on males alone but on the combination of good blood and 
good trapnest records. Some of the farms that have been trapnesting the last 
five years have now become so sure of their facts that they are entering pens 
of pullets at noted egg-laying contests. They are willing to leave it to the 
records that the hens make, in the year's time, whether they are breeding 
along right lines or not. One farm that I know, that got one record in their 
own nests of over 306 eggs from a pullet, has 10 pullets now being tested 
out at the Storrs Contests plant. A few years ago these contest managements 
had to go out and ask for entries. This last autumn they had hard work to 
decide which pens to reject. Instead of some of these contests dropping out 
of the work, there will be more of them in connection v/ith state colleges or 
experiment stations. 

I find farms, during January, that have started their big incubators, 
that have chicks scratching in the brooders, that are shipping out eggs for 
hatching and chicks for rearing. More large hatchers have been installed, 
more of the big brooder systems set up. The poultry business that 20 years 
ago we were told was soon to be overdone is now just getting into its steady 
walk. There have been ups and downs, successes and failures, but today 
the poultry business has the respect and good will of everyone. 

Breeding for Eggs 

We have come to the time when we must accept the fact that breeding 
for large egg production is just as possible as the breeding for fancy points. 
We have got to know our best layers, have got to have some plan of knowing 
the chicks from a certain hen. There is no other way that is at all satis- 
factory that we can follow. Back to trapnests we must go! The man who 

44 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

has been intelligently and honestly using trapnests, the experiment station 
that has been breeding along lines of record hens and males, is showing us 
that there is more in their work than we realized. Into a few of our pens 
of selected layers let us set up a series of trapnests. I would give a bunch 
of bank bills if I knew at this moment the cockerels that were out of the 
egg laid by a certain pullet of mine last spring. She has made her record, 
her chicks are out in the flock, yet I cannot pick them out. I know their 
sire because I pedigreed according, to pens. Now I must go on with the 
process and know the dam as well as sire. Along fancy lines I have been 
doing fairly good work with trapnests, but now I propose to extend it to the 
utility stock. There is no question in my mind that others of the profitable 
poultry business will have to turn to trapnests if they want to do advanced 
work with record hens. One, two or three dozen extra eggs a year does not 
mean much when you keep a few hens, but when you winter hundreds of them 
the increase will mean many dollars to you. 

As the eggs in the breeding pens increase in numbers I would advise 
the reducing of the quantity of scrap fed. You may not continue to get 
increased numbers but you are almost sure to get eggs that will hatch better. 
Stimulating the egg organs in the breeding season is one of the causes of 
poor fertility and low hatchabilty of the eggs. More than that — you get a 
less watery egg, one that brings out a chick that has livability in it! If you 
had poor success last spring with your hatching, you can do no worse with 
following these simple directions of mine. In actual practice I drop out all 
beef scrap and in its place use a good fish scrap. That is what I did last 
winter, the winter before, and the winter before that, and I have no fault to 
find with my hatches. 

Selecting the Breeders 

I would go over my females and select those that best fitted my ideal. 
If I had egg records they would help me in my work of making up pens. 
Having found the females that I needed and had them penned together, I 
would last of all go over the cockerels and cocks, to find the proper mate. 
If the vigor of the breeding birds is beyond question, if I know the ancestry 
beyond a doubt, then I would not hesitate to breed sire and daughter, sire 
and granddaughter, son to dam, or son to grand-dam. I would go a long 
ways for new blood before I would mate brother and sister. If I did not know 
my stock, if I did not have any definite plan in view, I would go out for 
fresh blood until I learned to know more of breeds and breeding. I have 
one cock that has sired a 246-egg pullet, that has sired another pullet that 
laid 50 eggs in last November and December at the Storrs Egg Contest, and 
that cock will be mated this month to his daughters and granddaughters. 
He will remain in the pen till the middle of April, when he will be replaced 
by a cockerel of the same line of breeding but not at all near. I do not want 
to have all my "eggs in the same basket," so shall not spoil my whole season's 
work by relying on a single male. This cock is as vigorous at the beginning 
of his fourth year as when a cockerel, and I expect him to head a pen another 
year. 

Old birds that are full of life make your best breeders if you handle them 
with good judgment. The very fact that they are so strong at three, four 
or five years of age shows that they must have inherited what you most need 
in breeding lines — absence of disease tendencies. These are the birds that 
you can line breed; can inbreed along the lines I have indicated. 

The Breeding Pens 

We cannot longer put off the final mating up of the pens that will give 
us hatching eggs. The pens of layers cannot be pushed for larger egg pro- 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

duction unless you have been doing this the past two months. The breeding 
pens need more square feet of floor space, more litter on the floor, more fresh 
air, than the laying pens absolutely require. You need outside conditions and 
yet have the stock within doors. Sunshine, air, dryness, room on floor and 
roosts, should be given the layers of eggs for hatching. The modern house 
witii its glass and cloth front, with its open windows, will let in air and 
sunshine. You prevent much of the dampness by proper floor, by change ci 
litter as it becomes soiled, and mostly by the constant passing out of dampness 
of the birds' breath through the muslin-covered window frames. 

The pens are mated up with various numbers of females and male. The 
Leghorns will give you fertile eggs when one male is penned with not more 
than 15 or 20 females, while the larger breeds demand fewer females. My 
Wyandottes are in lots of IC' to 14 hens and pullets to one cock or cockerel. 
My Leghorns are mated so that 15 hens are with one cock, and 20 pullets are 
with each cockerel. Where larger numbers can be put together, say 50 Leg- 
horn pullets, then two cockerels will answer. The larger the flock the fewer 
males are required. I have one house with 70 Leghorn pullets in it with three 
cockerels giving fertile eggs. This is not one large square house, but is 12 x 21 
feet, with three partitions extending out two-thirds the way from the back wall. 
With these numbers, and with these arrangements, I have yet to have any 
failure either from lack of fertility or failure to get vigorous chicks. Seldom 
is it worth while to let the breeders out into the runs unless the air is mild, 
the ground dry, and no high winds. Unless you have these conditions it is 
better to give them summer conditions within the horse?. Open up the fronts., 
give litter freely, clean out the soiled earth and droppings three times a week, 
and get after vermin. 

Saving Green Food for Winter 

It is now that we are storing up some of the food for the coming months 
of winter and spring. While it is not exactly green food it is next to it. 
Dried clever, alfalfa, vetch or common hay are no longer "green" when dry 
enough to keep without heating. They are mighty helpful when it comes to 
making up a good winter ration. I have part of my barn now filled with 
some of this well dried crop for my poultry when the ground is frozen. One 
loft is filled with a splendid mixture of Vv^inter wheat and alfalfa, seeded in 
August and cut in June. It was dried in the cock, is as green in color as 
you would like to see, and is full of the good qualities of the wheat and alfalfa 
plants. Another loft has a ton and a half of a mixture of winter vetch and 
Viinter wheat, seeded in September and cured in late June. This was cut 
when the wheat was just blossoming and the vetch in all the glory of the 
beautiful flowers. This was cured in the windrow, brought in while still 
slightly green, and safely stored away against a time of need. The next 
crop of alfalfa, to be cut in July, will be saved to go into the dry mashes ci 
the 'small chicks of another spring. The wheat, the vetch, the alfalfa, will 
be run through a cutter that gives quarter-inch lengths, will be mixed with 
the ground grains and scrap, and fed in either a dry or moist form to my 
poultry. Will I use the dry leaves that fall off as the alfalfa and vetch is 
handled in the barn? Yes, if I have any. In the condition that mine is thi;; 
year I doubt there being many leaves that come ofi" the stems. It is "cured 
in the shade," like tea, not much like some of the baled hay that I have 
often bought. There will be little clover to harvest this year, but what 
there is will be saved for cows and hens. I like the farm as a place to live, 
as a place to handle good poultry, and the ideal spot to raise good chicks. 
All folks cannot live on the farm, but those who do have the advantage oi 
the village and town people. 

46 



Chapter XVII 

FIGHTING VERMIN 

HOT, sultry July days give conditions that tend to the coming of large 
numbers of red mites. Debilitating summer weather lessens the 
activity of the hen as regards dusting for lice. Busy as the farmer 
is, he must watch out for vermin in house and on the hens. The 
body lice can be handled by the use of "blue ointemnt" and lard — equal parts 
— a small amount being rubbed into the short feathers just below the vent. 
A single application will usually dispose of the lice problem for the summer. 

The U. S. Department of Agriculture has recently discovered a better 
method of eradicating lice with the use of Sodium Flouride. When purchasin ;; 
Sodium Flouride see that it is in the commercial form, that it is the powdered 
form. A box or pan sufficiently large to hold the bird should be provided. 
The legs may be held by one hand and a pinch of the chemical placed into 
the feathers with the ether. Seven or eight pinches should be sufficient to 
cover the bird. Be sure to cover the head, under wings, around vent, back 
and breast. Distribute such pinch by pushing thumb and fingers among the 
feathers. Providing a box or pan will prevent wasting the matei'ial. You 
can use over again that which has dropped off the feathers. Be careful not 
to raise much of a dust when applying, for Sodium Flouride is irritable to 
the membranes of your throat and nose. 

Enough of the powder will remain in the feathers to kill the lice that 
hatch later. In a week's time practically all lice will have been killed. 

Sodium Flouride is poisonous, so be careful when using it to see that nons 
of it gets into the drinking water or feed. 

Red mites will be driven from their retreat by the heat of noonday, and 
will be seen in large numbers on the inside of the walls, or at the end of the 
roosts, or on the droppings boards. Get after them at once. You cannot 
keep up the egg yield and have these insects sucking the hen's blood through 
the night. In the press of the June haying one of the four-pen hosues showed 
signs of red mites. They did not get badly started but enough to make me 
uneasy when I went to pick up eggs in the middle cf the afternoon. A 5 per 
cent mixture of Zencleum and cold water was made, a hand pump brought 
into use, and those four pens were sprayed thoroughly. This was done along 
5 o'clock in the afternoon, leaving the roosts and walls still damp when the 
hens went to roost. Whenever a mite got in the range of the spray it quickly 
went to its long rest. Three days later I sprayed again. Carbolineum 
1 pail to kerosene 3 pails makes one of the best sprays for mites I know of. 
I have just had a letter from one of our subscribers who tells me she knows 
mites and lice, but did not realize what spider lice were till lately. She said 
that when she went into her nice winter house the insects were on the walls 
and soon transferred themselves to her. This house was used last year for 
chickens and fall brooding, but had been empty through the early winter. 
She had been reading something of mine where I had spoken of spider lice, 
so she wrote to tell me that now she knew them. I had to write her that 
what I called "spider lice" were red mites, just the same insect under another 
common name. What I wish to make plain is that lice live on the body of the 
fowl all the time, while the mites or spider lice are on the birds only when 
they want a meal of fresh blood. They fill up on the blood, retire to crack 
or behind a board, there to digest the full stomach of good food. These mites 
that were moving over the walls, getting onto her, were extremely hungry 
and on the move to get next a supply of good blood ; had there been a flock of 

47 



PLEASURE AND PROFIT FROM POULTRY 

hens in that house they would have first have had a chance at the birds and 
then a few scattering ones got onto her. 

In Conclusion 

Everything will not run smoothly, there will come unexpected troubles, 
but through it all maintain a good grip on your affairs. Take what comes 
with quietness, study your successes and failures, that you may profit from 
one and avoid the other. Country life is coming into its own in these late 
years. The poultryman is often the envy of the city dweller, though he does 
not always deserve it, and the good poultry plant is not to be smiled at as a 
place of business. 



48 



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